Dead Like Them
by nixajane-f0rcryin0utl0ud
Summary: He glanced up feeling like someone was walking over his grave, and locked eyes with a man across the street. SGA SG1 Dead Like Me Crossover SLASH
1. Dead Like Them

**_Dead Like Them_**

* * *

Notes: This is an SGA/SG1 crossover Dead Like Me AU. Basically it's the characters from SGA & SG1 in the Dead Like Me universe.

* * *

They were serving lemon chicken in the little lunchroom again, just to spite him. 

Rodney grabbed his coat and called them all jealous imbeciles that wanted him dead, and then went out the door, slamming it shut behind him. As last words went, he figured his weren't that bad and at least they had the benefit of being true.

Maybe it wasn't anything inspiring or brilliant, but he was inspiring and brilliant all the rest of the time in all of his too short life, so they would always have that to remember him by.

He got a coffee and a bagel from the Starbucks on the corner and then wandered back out into the street. He sat on the bench in front of his lab, not ready to face his annoying colleagues, and then just watched all the stupid people go by as he pondered Atlantis' Labs newest acquisition; a missile drone from a secret research site somewhere in Antarctica.

He was brought out of his thoughts when someone sat beside him, and he rolled his eyes, because that was the last thing he needed. He didn't do that whole small talk with strangers thing, but from his estimate, about 87.3 of the population did, and it was a good bet this one would be a talker.

"Are you Rodney McKay?" the man asked. He was an older man, and balding, but Rodney recognized from his eyes that he wasn't a complete imbecile, so didn't completely blow him off.

"Dr. Rodney McKay," Rodney corrected, rather huffily. "Who the hell are you?"

"That's not important," the man said kindly, before reaching out and patting his leg. It tingled strangely, and Rodney rubbed at the spot he'd touched in irritation, barely noticing as the man slipped away again.

He set his coffee and bagel aside, feeling strangely disconnected and off balance. He glanced up; feeling like someone was walking over his grave, and locked eyes with a man across the street. He was standing on the edge of the curb, wearing a blue track jacket and sneakers, with his hands in his pockets, and he was probably the most effortlessly attractive person Rodney had seen even this close.

He didn't know he was staring until the man threw him a dorky wave and a big grin, and the next instant he was gasping for breath three feet from where he'd been, looking at the smoking mass that had been his body. An organic like missile was sticking out of his back, losing the last of its flickering glow. He recognized it easily, and when his eyes turned to the lab, he saw the front window had been blown completely apart.

"Oh, god," Rodney said. "Oh god. I'm hallucinating. I must be--what the hell was in that coffee?"

Rodney glanced back toward his body. The gorgeous guy that had waved at him had crossed the street, and was holding Rodney's coffee and taking a sip, looking down at the smoking corpse with a frown. People were running around like the morons they were, obviously unable to figure out what to do. He didn't see one person take out a cell phone to call 911, the idiots.

"The coffee's great," the cute guy said, apparently looking right at him. "You're just feeling a little weird because you're dead."

"I'm not dead," Rodney denied instantly. "I'm too brilliant to be dead!"

"Huh," the man said. "That's a new one. I haven't heard that one before." He stepped over the body and out of the way of the gathering crowd effortlessly, and then stopped beside Rodney.

"I'm not, I can't be," Rodney told him, before pointing at him in accusation. "What is this? If I'm dead, then how am I talking to you? Ha! Explain that!"

"You're talking to me because I'm a grim reaper," the guy said, and flashed him another toothpaste ad grin.

"You are not a grim reaper," Rodney snapped. "You're way too pretty."

"Flattery won't get your life back," he said, charmingly, before swinging an arm around his shoulders and steering him away from his body. "I don't think we've been properly introduced, I'm John."

"Dr. Rodney McKay," Rodney snapped. "I demand to see your supervisor."

"Jack? Jack's a little busy," John said. "He's having trouble with Daniel again; he keeps trying to save people; which means you're my responsibility."

Rodney glanced back again. Radek, Peter and Carson had run out and were standing around his body looking shell shocked and pale. Peter had to hold Miko back, as she screamed his name hysterically through her tears.

"You don't need to watch this," John told him softly.

Rodney just nodded, and let John continue to lead him away. His silence, however, didn't last long.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded. "Shouldn't I be moving into a light or something?"

"We're going to pick up my laundry," John told him.

"Are you fucking with me?" Rodney snapped.

John grinned at him again. He seemed to do that a lot, and Rodney didn't like the way it distracted him. He was dead for Christ's sake, and still being ruled by hormones. "Hey, calm down," John told him. "We're just killing time until your funeral."

"My funeral?" Rodney asked, suddenly inexplicably delighted. "I get to go?"

"Got you front row seats," John told him.

"It's probably not going to be for days, though," he said, frowning. "I'm sure they're going to need time to plan something spectacular enough to honor my genius. What am I supposed to do until then?"

"You can go haunt people if you want," John said. "That's always fun, and honestly, I can't really do anything with you when you're like this. It's so disconcerting interacting with the dead. It's like hanging out with Casper or something, I never liked it."

Rodney glared at him. "Well, aren't you dead?" he demanded.

John shook his head. "I'm undead, which means I get to do pretty much whatever I want, so long as I nab a few souls every once and awhile."

"Charming," Rodney hissed.

"Don't worry," John told him. "Time passes differently when you're dead. They'll be having your funeral in no time."

John waved at him again, earning a few strange looks from people passing by that couldn't see who he was waving at, and then slid into the Dry Cleaners to pick up his laundry.

-----

Rodney scowled as John snatched another--Jesus was that lemon?--tart from the table in front of them. "Couldn't you wait until after the service?" Rodney hissed. "And aren't you dead--undead--whatever...do you even need to eat?" He watched as John popped the tart into his mouth with a cocky smirk and raised eyebrow.

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying fine cuisine," John grinned.

Rodney snorted. "Well it's obvious your taste buds are dead."

John shrugged as he reached for a glass of champagne. "You know, this is pretty swanky. They've really gone all out for you."

"Yes, well--it's only logical. I am the smartest man alive."

"Were," John said absently, scanning the room, grinning when he saw the rest of the gang wandering in. Ronon headed straight for them, eyes on the table of food; Daniel looked solemn in his beautifully tailored black suit; Jack sauntered beside Daniel, his suit just as pristine as Daniel's but with an amused smirk on his face as they stopped in front of John and Rodney. "Guys," John nodded.

Rodney had been searching the room, apparently looking for some scientist named Sam something or other that he told John would be devastated by his death; she was after all head over heels in love with him. He pulled his gaze from the room at large though at John's voice, frowning as he took in the three strangers before them. He leaned closer to John, whispering from the side of his mouth, "Can they see us?"

Jack rolled his eyes, scanning the table with a sigh. "What, no beer?"

Daniel held out his hand to Rodney, smiling brightly. "My name is Daniel--and yes, we can see you."

"Are you dead too?" Rodney snapped, staring at the outstretched hand before narrowing his eyes at the large, hairy man, currently stuffing two lemon tarts in his mouth and four in the pocket of his long black trench coat.

Jack stuffed his hands in his suit pockets, looking pointedly at John. "How much did you tell him?"

"Not much," John shrugged. "That's your job," he grinned, rocking on the balls of his feet.

"Hey, dead guy here--care to fill me in?" Rodney crossed his arms over his chest, mouth pulled down in a crooked line.

"Oh look, the shows about to start," Jack said, pointing towards the front of the room where Elizabeth was stepping up to the podium.

Rodney's crooked frown turned into a crooked, and smug, grin. "Ah, Elizabeth--"

"She's hot," Ronon's low voice sounded behind them.

Rodney waved a hand, shushing him. "Shut up--I want to hear how devastated they all are by my untimely--and completely unfair death." He threw a glare at John as if it was John's fault he was dead before returning his eyes to the front of the room.

The scientists that had been thus far milling about the room in various groups, talking quietly amongst themselves, all moved forwards to take their seats as Elizabeth began to speak. "We're all here to pay our respects to our late colleague, Rodney McKay."

"Doctor," Rodney shouted, his grin souring.

"Ssh," John said in his ear, grinning when Rodney huffed indignantly.

Elizabeth went on to talk about Rodney's contributions to the lab, the accomplishments he had achieved in his life, all with Rodney clarifying loudly to the room at large (despite the fact John had told him no one could hear or see them) whenever Elizabeth got something wrong (which was happening far too much for Rodney's liking) or when she left some vital contribution he'd made out (also happening too often). All in all Rodney was very disappointed with the speech. "She should have prepared more--made cue cards or something," he grumbled. "She didn't come close to expressing the true scope of what a genius I really am."

"Were," John grinned.

When Elizabeth opened the floor to anyone who would like to say a few words about Rodney, he turned to John with a triumphant grin. "Now we'll see devastation."

Rodney's eyes were huge, his mouth falling open a little more with each person that spoke and John tried very hard not to laugh. So far, Simpson, Gaul, and someone named Kavanagh had all stood to speak.

Simpson had said she was sorry McKay had died but that his death was just like the man; loud—the rest of her words were drowned out by Rodney's angry squawk of protest.

Gaul had said he didn't think he would ever meet another man whose girlish fear when it came to such innocuous things as bugs and lemon chicken could surpass Rodney McKay's. Rodney had begun waving his hands, yelling about allergies and death and other less coherent things and John was sure Rodney's eyes were going to bug right out of his head, but then Kavanagh had gotten up to speak.

When he announced to the room that with the passing of McKay, his own brilliance would no longer be ignored, John had to literally hold Rodney back as he tried to lunge for the man. "Have you forgotten your current state of death, McKay?" John managed to wheeze, his arm tightening around Rodney's waist, as he tried not to burst out laughing.

Behind them Daniel's eyes were wide in shock, Jack was smirking and shaking his head and Ronon was chuckling to himself as he grabbed something that looked like a pig in a blanket.

Rodney sagged in John's arms, head down, breathing labored. "Fuck!" he shouted, before his voice got quiet and he muttered to himself, "I hope they all die in some horrible lab explosion that only I could have saved them from."

John nodded sympathetically and released his hold, patting Rodney on the shoulder. Glancing up he smiled. "Hey, someone else is getting up."

Rodney looked up just in time to hear the high-pitched sobbing as Miko took the podium. Rolling his eyes, he turned to the four men standing behind him. "This is all a joke, right? Any minute now Grodin, Carson and Radek are going to jump out and yell 'gotcha', right?" Rodney's voice was taking on a slightly hysterical tone as he looked from John to Jack, Daniel and Ronon. "Because really, if this is my fucking funeral then I reserve the right to come back and haunt every last one of these bastards until the day they die!" He was shouting again, his face red, panting hard and John reached over and grabbed a glass of water.

"You look like you could use this," he said carefully.

Rodney scowled at the water. "I'm dead, remember?" But even as he said it he reached out for the water because his throat hurt from yelling and he was suddenly really hungry because he didn't even fucking get to eat his lunch because he fucking died! Watching his hand go right through the glass of water he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Why the fuck am I hungry?" he asked calmly, looking up into the semi-frightened faces before him.

"Wow," Jack mumbled, Daniel nodding.

Ronon snorted and turned to Jack. "Can't we trade him in for a less--crazy reaper?"

Jack elbowed Ronon, smiling brightly at Rodney. "Hey--isn't that Zalinsky getting up to talk?"

Rodney had either not heard Ronon or was too distracted by the way John's hand was making slow, relaxing circles on the small of his back to catch the comment but turned when he saw Jack pointing towards the front of the room again. "Great--I suppose now we get to hear how all my brilliant research was really Radek's--that I'd...I'd read his mind or something," Rodney huffed, arms crossing over his chest again as he focused on the small ruffled man at the podium.

Radek pushed his glasses up, blinking out at the crowd of scientists gathered to pay their respects to Rodney. "Doctor Rodney McKay was the most arrogant man I have ever met--" Radek started and Rodney covered his eyes because he really didn't think his day could get any worse than fucking dying but he'd obviously been wrong because not only had he died, he'd apparently gotten a one way ticket to hell. "He was also the most brilliant man I've ever had the pleasure to work with." Rodney's head shot up. "He was the only person whose arrogance was completely justified," Radek continued and Rodney's mouth was splitting into a wide grin, part smug and part relief.

"The loss to the science community will be great," Radek's head bowed. "Rodney was my friend--and I will miss him terribly."

John patted Rodney on the shoulder as Rodney swallowed thickly. "Yes, well--" he cleared his throat. "I always knew Radek wasn't as stupid as he seemed."

The rest of his funeral went by fairly fast--so much so that Rodney felt like someone had hit the fast forward button--and he found himself slumped in the booth of a diner that looked like it belonged in the sixties. "I can't believe I died," Rodney groaned, head pillowed on his crossed arms on the table. John scrunched in closer beside him, making room for Ronon's large legs under the table.

"At least you went out with a bang," John joked. Rodney raised his head long enough to scowl.

"I hope they shot whatever idiot activated that fucking drone," Rodney mumbled into his arms.

"So, what can I get you boys?" A voice chirped beside them and Rodney raised his head slowly, blinking into the smiling face of a petite brunette with large, friendly eyes and a bright grin.

"Uh--"

"Pancakes, bacon, eggs--scrambled, toast, and a large orange juice," Ronon rumbled.

"Fruitloops, coffee--black," Jack answered, handing over his menu.

"Oatmeal, toast, and a large coffee--black, three sugars," Daniel smiled widely.

John hummed beside him before handing over his menu, "Large orange juice and a bowl of Captain Crunch."

The pretty waitress, whose nametag said 'Janet', nodded as she wrote down all their orders, blindly reaching out to retrieve their menus as she turned to Rodney. "And what can I get for you, handsome?"

"Uh--" Rodney said again, eyes wide as he leaned into John's personal space. "You said no one could see me--can she see me? Why can she see me?" he stage whispered, ignoring the worried look 'Janet' was sending him.

He yelped when Jack kicked him under the table, glaring across at the man. "Order something McKay before the waitress thinks you're crazy," Jack said in a singsong voice, as he played with the napkin holder on the table.

"Me," Rodney hissed before turning to the waitress. "Give me the largest coffee you have--black--no wait, I want the whole pot; god I've missed coffee...and pancakes, bacon, eggs--boiled, toast with butter, hash browns--" his voice trailed off at the amused faces around him before he scowled and snapped, "No citrus! I am deathly allergic to citrus."

Jack, Daniel, Ronon and John all just shook their heads as the waitress walked quickly away from their table, her heels echoing in the near empty diner.

-----

"I have to get back to work," Rodney said. He was laid out on the diner booth, one arm flung over his eyes.

John ignored him. "This place is closing soon, you know."

"They're going to be lost without me," Rodney continued. "Now that I'm alive again--"

"You're not," John corrected lazily. "You're undead."

Rodney shot up in the booth and glared at him. "What does that even mean?"

"It means you're not alive, but you're not dead," John said, and grinned.

"That's entirely unhelpful. If people can see me, then I'll just find Radek and explain--"

"How you died, changed completely in appearance, and now take souls for a living?" John asked wryly.

"What do you mean changed in appearance?" Rodney asked, looking at his hands in horror. "I still feel like me."

"Yeah, to you, to me," John said. "You look different to the living."

"This sucks," Rodney hissed. "I don't even believe in an afterlife."

John laughed. "You might want to change your views on it now, considering."

Rodney crossed his arms. "I'm way too smart to be wasted doing Death's dirty work. I need to get back to Atlantis Labs."

"No can do," John told him. "It's not so bad, okay? You can still do stuff, you just can't do what you were doing."

"And just how will you stop me?" Rodney asked him.

"I won't stop you," John said. "You'll stop yourself. Legend has it that the more you try to capture of your former life, the less you can hold onto it. You'll start to forget things, and considering the importance you seem to put on your intelligence, I'm thinking you don't want that."

"That's..." Rodney glared at him, and narrowed his eyes. "You're lying."

John snorted. "Yes, I just want your company so desperately, I'll say anything."

"Well what am I supposed to do then? Where am I going to sleep? Where do you send my paychecks?"

"You're going to have to figure that out on your own," John said. "And we don't get paid; this is more of a...public service. You're going to need a day job."

Rodney's eyes lit up. "Then I'll just interview at Atlan--"

"A low profile day job," John corrected wryly. "You want to do something that needs your intelligence? Fine. More power to you. But you can't work at your old job, it just isn't done."

"Where do you work?" Rodney asked, suspiciously.

"I give helicopter tours to the rich and boring," John told him, and then heaved a big sigh. "Look, since everyone else had excuses and bailed out, I'm kind of stuck of with you, so I guess you can stay with me until you get a place."

"You're too kind," Rodney said huffily.

"I'm a fucking saint," John said, and pulled out his wallet. He dropped a twenty and a couple of ones on the table and then got to his feet. Rodney followed him out without being asked again.

------

John's apartment was fairly small, but it looked like a model home. There was no clutter, only the bare essentials and a big screen, with a Playstation on the bottom of the shelf. Rodney looked at the framed photos of smiling people arranged on the shelf above the fireplace and frowned. "Is this your family?"

John came to stand beside him. "Nah," he said. "I cut them out of magazines. I just tell people they're my family."

Rodney continued to frown, but noticed a crinkled edge on the photo of a smiling woman that could have been John's sister, and he could see the frayed edge of a Jack Daniels ad on the other side.

"You can sleep on the couch," John told him. "And I can probably find some clothes for you, but they might be a little tight."

"Hey," Rodney snapped.

John just flashed him a grin. "You can use the Playstation if you want, and help yourself to the food. We have to be at O'Malley's by eight."

"What?" Rodney asked. "Why?"

"So Jack can hand out assignments," John told him easily.

"Assignments, meaning people we're supposed to kill?" Rodney snapped.

"We don't kill them, we just ease their way," John said. "Honestly, would you have wanted to be completely in your body when that drone hit? No, of course not, and that's what we do, we make it easier."

Rodney dropped onto the couch sulkily. "You could have shouted, 'hey, run' instead of waving at me," he snapped. "In fact, I think it's your fault. You had me stuck in place with your stupid fucking wiles."

John gave him a lop-sided grin. "There was nothing I could have done, I just thought I'd try and distract you from it while Hammond popped your soul."

"Hammond?" Rodney asked curiously.

"The nice man that sat beside you right before it happened." John said, as he pulled his curtains shut.

"You mean that weirdo that felt me up?" Rodney asked him incredulously.

"Sure," John said easily. "He took your soul, and it filled his quota, so he's off doing something else now."

"What something else?" Rodney asked him. "And when do I fill my quota?"

"I have no idea," John said. "You'll have to talk with Daniel. He's the one that tries to figure all this stuff out. He drives Jack crazy."

Rodney dropped his head into his hands. "This dead thing is a fucking nightmare."

"You'll get used to it," John told him. "Just get some sleep." John disappeared into his bedroom, turning the light out before he went, and Rodney fell sideways onto the couch, and watched the street lights flicker through the blinds until he fell asleep.

-----

When Rodney woke up, there were a pair of jeans and a long sleeved green shirt folded on the coffee table. John wandered into the room just a moment later, wearing another pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt, his hair dripping wet, slipping down his neck and soaking the collar. "You can use the shower," John offered, pointing behind him.

Rodney watched him wander into the kitchen, stopping every few feet to better toe on his sneakers. It was funny, because waking up to someone like John had long since been a fantasy, and it just figured he'd have to be dead for it to come true.

Of course, even dead, they'd still been sleeping in separate rooms.

"Thanks," Rodney mumbled. He found the shower easily enough, and stripped off his clothes before throwing himself in. He stood under the spray for fifteen minutes before John was knocking on the door and asking him if he was alright. "I'll be out in a minute!" he shouted.

He got dressed as quick as he could, but the clothes, as John had predicted, were a little tighter than he was used to. Once he finally got in the jeans, they looked like they'd been painted on. He wandered back into the living room and then fell back onto the couch, feeling drained.

"I probably shouldn't be showing this to you," John said, as he walked over with a coffee and a newspaper.

Rodney squinted at him with one eye. "Show me what?"

"Coffee first," John told him. He knelt in front of him and held out the steaming mug.

Rodney took the coffee, reevaluating the whole dead thing slightly. He could get used to the nice gorgeous guy bringing him coffee every morning. "What is it?" he asked.

"You made the front page," John told him softly, before handing the paper over.

The headline read: _BRILLANT SCIENTIST KILLED IN BIZARRE LAB ACCIDENT_.

"At least they got the brilliant part right," Rodney said. He tried to sound calm, but he felt a little sick, looking at the black and white photo of himself hovering above the caption 'the late Dr. Rodney McKay'. "Of course, genius would have been better."

He quickly read through the article, and then irritably tossed the paper aside.

"What's wrong?" John asked him, still watching him with those large intense eyes.

"No one is getting prosecuted for killing me!" he shouted. "It was that worm Kavanagh, I'm sure; he'd probably been planning it for years, and then the morons rule it an accident! An accident!"

"Maybe it was," John said. "Maybe it was gravelings."

"Gravelings?" Rodney asked. He was supposed to know everything about everything, but he just wasn't up on undead slang.

John nodded. "The things that make bad things happen," he said, before glancing at his clock and getting back to his feet. "We've got to run," he said. "We're going to be late."

-----

They were the last ones there. Ronon was huddled over a plate of bacon and eggs, stabbing at his food and then shoveling it into his mouth. Daniel was poking at a bowl of oatmeal and Jack was taking up a whole bench, sitting with his legs out and sorting through a pile of post-its.

John pushed Jack's legs off the edge and then slid in beside him. Rodney sat down reluctantly and tried not to watch Ronon eat.

"How's the newbie?" Jack asked, without so much as sparing Rodney a glance.

"He cleans up nice enough," John said, and flashed Rodney a grin.

Jack just snorted and stuck a post-it on the table in front of John. "I want you to take him with you today, teach him the ropes."

"I had him all yesterday," John said. He glanced at Rodney. "No offense or anything."

"Oh, none taken," Rodney snapped. He looked across at Daniel. "Are you going to eat that or what?"

"What?" Daniel asked distractedly, before glancing up and staring at Rodney like they'd never met.

"The oatmeal," Rodney said, for clarification. "Are you going to eat it or not?"

"Oh," Daniel said. He slid it across to Rodney. "You can have it if you want."

Rodney dug in without being told twice, and John rolled his eyes. "New reapers always screw things up," John said, turning to Jack. "Don't you remember what happened when you made me teach Daniel the ropes?"

"Hey," Daniel said, leaning forward. "It was a perfectly understandable mistake."

"Shouting 'hey watch out'?" John asked disbelievingly.

"It was instinct," Daniel told him sulkily. "I can't help it."

"Which is why I'm stuck keeping an eye on Daniel," Jack said. "And why you're stuck with the new kid."

"What about Ronon?" John asked. They all looked to Ronon, who grunted at them and went back to his food. John sighed. "Okay, fine. Looks like you're riding shotgun, McKay."

"Doctor," Rodney said.

"Not anymore," John said.

"Must you keep bringing that up?" Rodney demanded.

"For as long as you keep forgetting," John told him, and then picked up his post-it. "Let's go. We've got an early appointment today."

-----

"So where are we going?" Rodney demanded as he fought to keep up.

John had been completely unreasonable and refused to let him finish his oatmeal. He'd just grabbed his arm and started dragging him along. He reached into his pocket and handed Rodney the post-it.

"M. Sumner. Corner of Norad and Pegasus. ETD: 8:40 a.m." Rodney blinked. "ETD? Estimated time of death? Is this all some cosmic joke, or something? Are you fucking kidding me with this? This is all you get?"

"The less we know the better," John said. "For instance, if I'd known what a little ray of sunshine you were, I might have found your death harder to watch."

"You're a bastard," Rodney told him.

John smirked. "I've just been at this awhile."

"How long?" Rodney asked curiously.

"You don't want to know," John said quickly. "I haven't been at it as long as Jack in any case. The man is ancient."

They made it to the spot five minutes ahead of schedule and John leaned against a brick wall and crossed his ankles, looking for all the world like he was just waiting out the end of a lunch break, and not waiting to help someone die.

"I don't think I can do this," Rodney said, feeling sick again. "I'm not really built to kill people."

"We're not assassins, McKay," John said wryly. "Unless thinking of us like assassins helps."

"It doesn't," Rodney snapped.

"Then think of us more like...I don't know...flight attendants for the dead. Please head this way, towards the lights, etc, etc."

"You're completely insane," Rodney told him.

"Sanity doesn't have much use when you're undead," he said. "Mostly I've found it to be counterproductive."

A man started towards them, and Rodney wouldn't have noticed him but for the way John pulled himself up straight the moment he came into view. "Sumner?" he asked, twisting his tone of voice into something oddly giddy and curious, with none of that sardonic wryness Rodney had quickly come to love. "Is that you?"

The man blinked and walked over to him. "Do I know you?"

"You're Sumner, right? Wow, I've heard stories about you, legends--it's...I can hardly believe I'm actually meeting you."

Rodney scrunched up his face at John, wondering what the hell he was going on about, but Sumner just gave a slight grin and stood up straighter. "You in the marines, son?"

"Used to be," John said. "Do you mind if I shake your hand?"

Sumner held his hand out. "You sure we never served together? You look familiar."

"Afraid not," John said. He took the man's arm at the wrist, and dragged his hand gently down; ripples and waves and light seemed to accompany the movement, and Rodney winced.

"I've got to be going," Sumner said. "Take care."

"Take care," John echoed, letting go. "Semper Fi."

Sumner nodded and headed off down the ally. Rodney saw someone in a black trench coat come out of the shadows and push Sumner against the wall, shouting for his wallet and his money.

"So you were a marine?" Rodney asked.

John watched the gun fire off and the bullet hit, splitting apart Sumner's heart with one shot. "No," he said. "I wasn't."

Sumner appeared beside them, bewildered, as the mugger fled from the corpse. "Am I dead?" he asked.

"Afraid so," John told him. Rodney just stared at Sumner's body, thinking about his own recent demise.

"Twenty five years of service," Sumner said, "and I get shot by some punk kid in an ally."

"Yeah," John said, carefully leading Sumner towards a shimmering blue mass. "Ain't life a bitch?"

-----

"You can't just leave me here--what the hell am I supposed to do?" Rodney yelled.

John sighed. "Look, McKay, you remember that nice apartment you stayed in last night? Well my landlord prefers me paying rent to letting me stay for free and in order to pay my rent, I have to work."

"This sucks," Rodney sulked. "I hate my life!"

John grinned. "You mean your death." He ruffled Rodney's hair, ignoring the outraged scowl and tossed a, "See you tonight," over his shoulder.

Rodney reached up, fixing his messed hair and looked around. John had left him in the middle of a busy mall; couples performing PDAs on his left, screaming children on his right. His day just kept getting better and better. "The least he could have done was lend me some money for lunch," he groused, hands just barely squeezing into his pockets as he headed towards the mall exit.

-----

Four hours later Rodney was at his wits end. He had no where to go, couldn't go home to his own house, couldn't go back to the lab, had no idea where John worked, where Jack, Daniel or Ronon spent their days, had no money...Fuck!

Rodney ran his hands through his hair, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, John was standing inches away, grinning with amusement. "Hey, Rodney," he drawled.

"Oh thank GOD!" Rodney breathed, grabbing John by the arm. "I am starving!" John chuckled. "I am hypoglycemic--I have to eat every few hours or I could die!" John rolled his eyes and raised an eyebrow. "Fine, fine, yes I know--already dead, got that but that's totally beside the point. It's been hours."

John slung an arm around Rodney's shoulder, leading him down the street. "So, how was your day?"

"Dreadful," Rodney snorted.

"It'll get better," John assured with a wink that had Rodney's stomach fluttering.

"Can we eat now?" Rodney asked.

"I could eat," John grinned, pulling his arm away and Rodney ignored the pang of disappointment at the loss of contact. "There's a great little place just down the street."

The next morning Rodney woke with a shriek when he rolled right off the side of John's couch. John grinned down at him as he lay staring at the ceiling. "Morning, sunshine."

Rodney grunted, lifting an arm for John to help him up. He groaned as the muscles in his back twinged. "I died--shouldn't that make me exempt from things like bad backs and sore muscles?"

John laughed, patting his back and turning towards the kitchen. "Coffee?"

Rodney perked up at that, following John into the kitchen and wrapping his hands around the steaming mug John held out. Inhaling deeply he took a large gulp, sighing as he felt the caffeine hitting his system. "I think I love you," he said earnestly, staring into the mug.

"I love you too, McKay," John snorted.

"I was talking to the coffee," Rodney growled.

When they arrived at O'Malley's, Ronon was halfway through his usual breakfast, Daniel was sipping his coffee and reading the newspaper, and Jack was nowhere to be seen. John and Rodney slid into the booth opposite Daniel. "Where's Jack?" John asked.

"Running late," Daniel answered absently.

Janet came over, smiling brightly. "What can I get you boys?"

They ordered and Rodney muttered endearments into his coffee mug again while John just shook his head. Ronon growled when John stole a piece of bacon but otherwise didn't stop him. Rodney eyed Ronon's plate, his hand creeping closer towards the lone sausage left. He yelped in pain when Ronon stabbed him with his fork, clutching his hand to his chest, eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Why didn't you stab John?"

John snickered beside him, earning Rodney's glare. Bumping his shoulder against Rodney's John pushed the rest of his hash browns towards him. Rodney huffed and then quirked a grin at John. "Thanks."

"Gotta keep your strength up," John winked. "Today's your first reap."

Rodney paled, swallowing thickly before pushing the plate back towards John, "Suddenly I'm not really all that hungry." John threw him a worried glance but didn't comment.

"Good morning campers!" Jack's cheerful voice called as he walked towards them.

"Is he always like this?" Rodney asked with a frown.

"Pretty much," Daniel shrugged, sliding over in the booth to make room for Jack.

Rubbing his hands together, Jack smiled at Janet. "Coffee and your biggest bowl of oatmeal."

Daniel, John and Ronon all stared at him. "You feeling okay, Jack?"

"Just peachy."

John's brow wrinkled. "You don't eat oatmeal...ever."

"It's good to be open to new experiences," Jack said seriously. Opening the day planner in front of him he slapped post-it notes down in front of Ronon and John.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "What about me?"

"You, Danny boy--have the day off." Jack clapped him on the shoulder.

Daniel grinned maniacally as he shoved Jack out of the booth. "See you guys later."

Shaking his head Jack yelled, "Stay out of trouble." John and Ronon snorted.

Turning back towards Rodney, Jack folded his hands in front of him. Rodney shifted uncomfortably under the steady gaze. Jack peeled off a post-it from his day planner and placed it carefully in front of Rodney. Rodney swallowed. Jack leaned back, placing a hand along the back of the seat as he turned to John. "You're babysitting again today," he said with a grin that showed none of the intensity from the previous moment.

"Aw man," John groaned.

Rodney stared at the post-it in front of him, not touching it. F. Collins. Spring Garden and Fifth. ETD: 3:27 p.m. Taking a deep breath, and tearing his eyes from the post-it he looked at Jack. "So what happens if I'm not there at 3:27?"

Jack's eyes hardened. "You'll be there."

Rodney nodded. "Yes, yes but what if I'm not?"

John cleared his throat, pushing on Rodney's arm and sliding out behind him. "He'll be there." He smiled charmingly at Jack, patting Ronon on the shoulder before hustling Rodney out of O'Malley's and into the warm summer air.

"Trust me, you do not wanna piss Jack off," John said in a low voice, grabbing Rodney's wrist and pulling him down the street.

"I tend to piss most people off," Rodney stated matter-of-factly. "Besides--I like to understand things and if I'm going to be the star in 'night of the living dead' I'd like to have all the facts."

John smirked. "You're just going to have to learn as you go."

"I hate that," Rodney muttered.

"So," John grinned. "We've got some time to kill."

"What time is your--"

"Not till later tonight," John said quickly. "So...job hunting?"

Rodney frowned. "Did you get fired?"

Rolling his eyes, John sighed. "Not for me, McKay--you're going to need to get a job too."

Rodney pursed his lips in what looked like a pout. "But I like being a kept man."

John snorted and shoved Rodney, throwing him off balance and laughing when Rodney threw him a crooked grin.

At 1:30, after totally blowing off the job search, John's eyes had lit up when they passed an amusement park. "They have a Ferris Wheel!" John was practically bouncing. Rodney gave a well practiced, long suffering sigh and let John pull him towards the ride, shaking his head as John's grin just kept getting bigger the closer they got.

By 2:00 Rodney was nauseated from four trips around the Ferris wheel and had to bodily drag John away, feeling vaguely guilty at John's pout of disappointment. He made it up to him by borrowing some money from John and then buying him a stuffed penguin. "I don't do sports," Rodney explained.

John chuckled. "I don't think you can really call the ring toss a sport." But he clutched the penguin close, grinning happily beside Rodney as they left the amusement park.

They were on Spring Garden by 3:00 and Rodney was, by that point, ready to offer John anything. "Seriously--I'll get the next one. I promise."

John shook his head. "Rodney--it's your post-it."

"So?" Rodney snapped in frustration.

"You're the only one that can reap F. Collins."

"Have I mentioned how much this fucking sucks?" Rodney bitched.

"Numerous times," John said wryly.

Rodney sighed beside him, looking around at the unsuspecting peons scurrying around them. A familiar, wild tuft of hair caught his attention. "Radek!" Rodney yelled, squeaking when John shoved him against the side of a building, pressing his lips to Rodney's.

When John pulled back his eyes were dark. "What the fuck are you doing?" he hissed.

Rodney's brain was still stuck on John kissing him. "Huh?"

"You're dead, Rodney--dead. You need to break off all ties with your old life." John's voice was quiet and serious.

Rodney swallowed and nodded. "Sorry, sorry--I...I wasn't thinking."

John sighed, as he pulled back. "I know--just--aw, damn." Rodney blinked as John bent down in front of him. "You made me drop Steve."

"Steve?" Rodney frowned.

John dusted off the penguin, holding it in front of Rodney's face. "Steve." John tucked the penguin under his arm and headed towards Fifth, Rodney hurrying to catch up.

"So," Rodney smiled smugly, "you kissed me."

John glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "No I didn't."

"Oh, yes--you did." Rodney was humming to himself, hands in his pockets.

Shaking his head, John snorted. "So Radek wouldn't see you."

Rodney scoffed. "Hello--" he waved a hand towards himself, "he wouldn't recognize me anyway."

John looked at him pointedly. "I think the arm waving would have caught his attention."

At 3:20 Rodney couldn't breathe. "I can't kill anyone."

"Rodney--we've been over this."

"I don't care!" Rodney shouted, lowering his voice when John stepped closer. "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can," John said calmly. "All you have to do is touch the guy."

"Are you insane?" Rodney hissed. "All I have is a god damned first initial! What if _Frank_ and fucking _Flo_ Collins are standing beside each other! Which one do I fucking take!" Rodney's hands were clenched into fists. "This is so fucked up."

"Breathe Rodney," John squeezed the back of his neck. "This is the way things have been for a very long time--it works, trust me."

At 3:23 _Fred_ Collins dropped his wallet in front of Rodney. Bending down Rodney glanced at the man's driver's license. "Excuse me, you dropped this."

Frank turned around, a smile on his face. "Shit, thanks--" Rodney's hand brushed Collins' wrist as the man reached for the wallet, leaving a tingle in Rodney's fingertips. Shaking his head with a confused frown Collins' looked back at Rodney nodding with a grin. "Thanks again."

Rodney took a deep breath, closing his eyes when the busker juggling lit batons slipped in the ice cream the snot nosed little girl had dropped, missing the twirling mass of fire as it plummeted back towards the ground.

John placed a hand on Rodney's shoulder and turned him away from the screaming Collins as he went up in flames. "You okay?"

Rodney turned blue eyes towards John. "No."

"Oh wow," Fred said beside them, staring at the still smoking remains of his former body. "Is that--?"

John nodded.

"So now what?" Fred asked, turning wide eyes towards them.

Rodney gestured with a nod of his head, "I think that's your ride." Behind Fred was a shimmering blue vision of cliffs and water and clouds. Fred's smile was wide as he stepped closer and Rodney said, "What's on the other side?"

John watched beside him. "I have no idea."

Fred waved as he stepped into the light, disappearing from their eyes. Rodney sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "That--is very disconcerting."

John laughed and started down the street. "Are you hungry?"

With one last look at the place Fred Collins had disappeared Rodney shrugged and fell in step beside John. "I could eat."


	2. Dead Man Walking

**_Dead Man Walking_**

* * *

Rodney should probably have been a little disconcerted that his afterlife, as it was, had not a few benefits more than he'd ever managed during his life. When he'd been alive, guys like John wouldn't have given him the time of day, guys like John were naturally cool, and Rodney, while he had the most brilliant mind to ever walk the Earth, tended to get tongue tied in social situations. Guys like John, when he'd been alive, certainly wouldn't let him move in and bring him coffee in the mornings, or make him breakfast without being asked. 

John even rented _The Sixth Sense_ for him after Rodney had mentioned never getting to see the end. They watched the whole thing together, and considering his situation, Rodney found the ending eerily appropriate.

That wasn't to say he was having the time of his life, or unlife, or whatever. He missed his lab, his work, even Radek, but most of all, he missed his cat.

It still felt a little odd, sneaking in through Elizabeth Weir's window and creeping across her living room, though, and he gave himself a moment to have second thoughts before pressing on. He felt like some kind of pervert or peeping Tom, but he reminded himself that he wasn't here to spy on Elizabeth.

He was here for his cat. Elizabeth had always been after his cat, always coming over with excuses just to try and draw Thales away, and so tracking Thales down had been pathetically easy. He spotted him curled up on the sofa, the small cat bed Elizabeth had placed out for him had been scratched almost to pieces and flipped over in distain. He obviously wasn't happy about not having a real bed. Living with Rodney, he usually got it all to himself, because Rodney had a habit of falling asleep in the lab.

"Thales," he whispered.

Thales opened one eye and glanced at him in disgust before going back to sleep.

"It's me, you stupid cat," Rodney hissed.

Thales didn't move, but Rodney heard someone walking around in the bedroom, and a moment later he heard Elizabeth call out, "Is someone there?"

Rodney's eyes went wide. "Fuck," he whispered, before grabbing Thales up. The cat screeched in protest, but Rodney didn't pause; he just jumped out the window and started running.

Elizabeth could get her own damn cat; this one was his.

-----

The first thing John said was, "Please tell me you didn't."

Rodney was covered in mud up to his knees from where he'd tripped in Elizabeth's garden, and Thales was mud splattered and trying to twist out of his grip, so Rodney decided John must be really optimistic thinking there was a chance he i hadn't /i . "I didn't," he said anyway, obediently.

John collapsed onto his couch and placed his head in his hands. "Rodney," he said, sounding a little pained.

"Is this about the mud?" Rodney asked, looking at the trail of muddy footprints he'd left. "I know you're anal about cleanliness. I'll clean it, okay? You'll never know the difference."

"You stole that cat," John said, glancing up at him. "I can't _believe_ you."

"It's my cat," Rodney said, just as Thales jumped out of his arms and went to hide under the coffee table.

"You're dead," John told him.

"I'm_ un_dead," Rodney corrected primly, because John had done it to him often enough. "And I missed my cat. You can't tell me that the cat runs a risk of spreading the news I'm undead. The cat is not a security risk."

"That's not the point," John said. "You can't...you have to let go."

"It's not like I kidnapped Radek," Rodney said. "Elizabeth doesn't know what to do with Thales. She was treating him like just any cat, but he's very smart. He has special needs."

"Rodney," John said again.

Rodney took a deep breath. "Look, do you want me to leave? Is that what this is about? Because I know I was only supposed to crash here for a few days, but as soon as I can get a job--"

"It's not that," John said with a sigh. "Although you will be cleaning up that mud." John ran a hand through his hair. "I'm just worried about you, okay?"

"Didn't you ever try," Rodney started haltingly. "I mean, didn't you ever want something? Something to connect you with what you had?"

John wouldn't look at him. "No," he said. "There was nothing I wanted to remember."

"I guess you were lucky then," Rodney said.

"That's one way to look at it," John said. "Just...keep the cat out of sight, okay? Animals aren't allowed in this building."

Rodney let out a relieved breath, and gave a small smile. "No one will be the wiser, I promise."

-----

Rodney was getting into a routine. It was a fucked up routine, but a routine nonetheless. He'd wake up face down on the couch and pass a wet John on his way to the shower, and if the cosmos really wanted to torture him, then John would only be wearing a towel and looking like he'd walked out of an ad for Lever 2000.

By the time he took his own shower, John would have the coffee made, and then they'd head off to O'Malley's to receive a post-it with the name of whoever's soul they were supposed to take that day.

So when the door buzzed at seven in the morning, it threw him off. John didn't seem surprised, and just glanced at him briefly before asking him levelly, "Can you get that?"

It was Jack. He was leaning against the doorjamb, smiling falsely, when he pulled the door open, and Rodney cursed. He turned to glare at John. "You_ told_ on me?" he snapped.

John gave him a tight smile and then looked back at his coffee, which was answer enough.

"Let's go for a walk, shall we?" Jack asked.

Rodney winced, but allowed himself to be pulled out the door. "I just wanted my cat," Rodney snapped. "What's so wrong with that?"

"It wasn't your cat anymore," Jack said. "John convinced me to let you get away with it this once, but it has to end here, understand?"

Rodney glared at him. "I don't get how you can all be so unattached. I just _died_ I'm allowed to...you know, freak out a little."

"Freak out all you like," Jack told him amiably. "Just do it without dragging anyone living into it, okay?"

"I'm never going to be like you, or like John," Rodney said desperately. "You'd be better off getting someone else to do this."

Jack grinned brightly. "Oh, if only I could," he said. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. We're stuck with each other. You should just be grateful that for whatever inexplicable reason, John seems to like you. He's never let anyone stay in that apartment more than fifteen minutes as long as I've known him."

Rodney's eyes widened. "Really?"

Jack shrugged. "I've always known John was a strange one. He likes the craziest things."

Rodney frowned, and glanced back at the closed door for a moment. "Do you know how he--I mean, were you there when...?"

"Was I there when he died?" Jack asked. He slipped his hands into his pockets and rolled back on his heels. "Yeah, I was."

"How did he die?" Rodney asked. Rodney figured that in a world of the undead, death was a fairly defining moment, but he couldn't get John to reveal anything.

Jack gave a slight smile. "That's something you're going to have to ask him," he said, before effortlessly spinning on his heel and leaving Rodney in the hallway. "Don't be late."

-----

Rodney traipsed back into the apartment; slightly chastised, but if he was being honest with himself not enough for him to regret retrieving Thales--and not enough for him to be okay with just forgetting his life. The others might be fine with cutting themselves off--maybe the rest of them were like John and didn't have anything that they wanted to hang on to but Rodney wasn't like them. He had his work, and Thales, and his overwhelming genius and even though it still sometimes surprised him (because Rodney wasn't a genius in name only and knew that he could sometimes be--difficult to be around) he had friends--and he missed his life.

John was rinsing out his coffee mug at the sink when Rodney walked back into the apartment, and even though Rodney wanted to be mad at him for _tattling_ on him to Jack, he really couldn't--not when John was being so nice to him, not when he could see that John was just worried.

Thales was rubbing up against John's leg, probably hoping to entice some food out of him and Rodney smiled when John nudged the cat over onto his side, rubbing Thales' belly with his foot as he quickly dried his newly washed mug. "He likes you."

John turned with a smirk. "I think he's just trying to suck up so I'll give him something to eat."

Rodney bent down and picked Thales up, cradling him in his arms. "Probably."

John snorted.

"So listen--" Rodney cleared his throat. "I appreciate that you only told Jack because you're worried..."

"I told Jack," John interrupted with a shake of his head, "because you didn't listen to me, Rodney. Yes, I'm worried--but you have to understand the rules." John folded his arms. "You can't go back. You can't capture some part of your life that you think you lost unfairly. You're not the same person anymore, Rodney, and you _have_ to move on."

"It's not that simple," Rodney snapped in frustration, letting Thales jump from his arms. "I can't just be blasé about this whole thing. I fucking _died_ , John. There was still _so_ much I had planned for my life. There's so god damned much that I will _never_ be able to do and it's not fucking FAIR!"

Rodney took a deep breath and John stared at him intently, not saying anything before giving a slight nod and pushing away from the counter. "We're going to be late."

"That's it?" Rodney asked.

"I don't know what you expect from me, Rodney." John sighed. "I can't tell you that it's fair, and telling you that it was just your time isn't going to help you either. All I know is that hanging on--trying to live your afterlife in the shadow of your former life is going to bring you nothing but pain. It's not easy to let go--no one ever said it was going to be--but it's so much harder hanging on." John looked at Rodney, sadness in his eyes. "We've all been dead a long time, Rodney--you just have to trust us on this one."

"I can't promise you anything," Rodney said quietly.

"You have to try," John answered, squeezing Rodney's shoulder and heading out of the kitchen. "We have to go--"

Rodney swallowed thickly before asking quickly, "How did you die?"

John paused at the entryway to the kitchen, his back still to Rodney. "Doing what I thought was right."

He doesn't say anything else and Rodney follows him when he leaves for O'Malley's.

----

Daniel was on babysitting detail that morning. Rodney huffed with annoyance when the man sneezed again. "I'm allergic to cats," Daniel explained and Rodney rolled his eyes.

His post-it took him to a car dealership on South St. and Sixth and he saw a fat, balding man in a blindingly bright sports jacket that looked like he bought it from a carpet salesman, step out of the dealership. What little hair he had was slicked back, greasy just like his smile and he stuck out his hand a good twenty feet before he reached them, walking towards them with it outstretched and making himself look like a reject from some cheesy zombie movie.

After Rodney and Daniel explained they were just looking, and after Rodney sputtered out a denial when the man assumed he and Daniel were 'partners', Rodney wandered the lot looking for S. Martinez--not that he at all knew where to find his..._reap_ , while Daniel just wandered. Rodney was actually grateful for the space Daniel was giving him. John had given him a lot to think about this morning, and though he honestly wasn't ready to just give up everything from his former life, he was willing to at least think about what John told him.

At 10:46 a.m. Rodney saw a man strolling towards him, a wide smile, and a swing in his step. He wasn't sure yet how the whole reaping thing worked but when he saw the man something whispered in the back of his mind that this was the person he'd been waiting for.

"Mr. Martinez?" Rodney called and the man stopped, turning an inquisitive look in Rodney's direction.

"Do I know you?"

"Are you George Martinez?" Rodney asked, knowing full well the man's name wasn't George, taking a step closer and the man shook his head.

"No, sorry--my name is Sam Martinez."

Rodney apologized, reaching out and touching Martinez's arm before watching him walk away. Daniel came up beside Rodney, hands in his pockets. "You're getting the hang of this."

Rodney snorted, watching as a man pulled up to the front of the dealership, jumping out with the car still running—stupid, but then, Rodney had always believed the majority of people were brainless. Inside the car Rodney caught a glimpse of something. "What the--" He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out a clearer picture of what he was seeing.

"Gravelings," Daniel said quietly as they watched the creature pull the car out of park; watched as it rolled into the side of the dealership; watched as the sign hanging from the building wobbled to and fro and finally watched as Sam Martinez walked right under it just as the metal holding it to the building broke away.

Rodney remembered John mentioning them. "They make bad things happen," he said and Daniel nodded.

In the blink of an eye Martinez was standing beside Rodney and Daniel, looking confused and shaken. "What happened?" He saw his body, partially covered by the sign, and swore quietly to himself before turning to Rodney and Daniel. "I won the lottery last week," he said, his voice filled with shock. "I was coming to buy my very first new car."

Rodney's mouth was turned down and he shook his head. "Hardly seems fair, does it?"

Behind them the shimmering light appeared again. This time Rodney saw a beautiful woman with long dark hair, soulful chocolate eyes, smiling and waving towards Sam. Sam whispered, "Maria?" before taking a step closer, his eyes wide. Rodney ignored the pang of jealousy as he watched Sam running towards her and disappearing into the light just like every other person he'd reaped since he died.

----

Now that Rodney had done his reap he told Daniel that he was going to head home, that he needed to check on Thales and since Daniel still had his own reap to do (not to mention his allergies to cats) he left Rodney on the corner of Tenth and Stewart with a wave and a smile.

He doesn't go back to John's apartment, instead wanders outside the lab, his throat tight and his stomach clenched. He should be in there, making discoveries, figuring out the answers to the universe, earning a Nobel Prize...he ducked behind a tree when he saw Elizabeth and Radek hurrying into the building. He can hear Radek's excited stream of Czech all the way from where he is and his heart begins to beat faster--the desire to run after them, to demand to know what is going on, to be involved, is so strong he can taste it.

Forcing himself away from the lab he eventually found himself back at John's apartment, slipping inside, locking the door behind him. He kicked off his shoes, wandering around the empty apartment for a few minutes before seeing Thales curled up on one of John's pillows. Rodney smiled because for one brief second he could pretend he wasn't dead, that he wasn't living some farce of a life, taking souls and _easing_ their passage to the afterlife; instead pretending he was simply coming home after a long day at the lab to find Thales curled up on his bed.

John's reap wasn't until later that afternoon and it was now just after lunch. Crawling onto the bed, his head beside Thales' sleep warm body, Rodney closed his eyes.

----

Rodney woke up with the sun in his eyes and he winced. Thales was on his back, purring and stretched out on a pillow. Rodney sat up and looked around the room. "John?"

He got to his feet and checked around quickly, but John wasn't there. He sat down in front of the TV and watched the sci-fi channel for a few hours, all of which seemed a lot more plausible considering he felt like he was living something that had less scientific basis than Star Trek did.

He fell asleep in front of the TV and didn't wake up until morning. John was right; time did pass differently when you were dead. He looked towards the kitchen, but for the first time since he'd been staying with John, the coffee wasn't already made. John always had the coffee going by seven.

He frowned and wandered into John's bedroom, but the bed was empty. The blankets were crumbled slightly and Thales was still buried into the pillow, but it was how Rodney had left it. John hadn't been home all night.

He exited the apartment and headed for O'Malley's. He was suddenly feeling a little sick with worry, but John, he reminded himself, was undead. The worst had pretty much already happened, so there was nothing to worry about.

He still walked a little faster than usual.

Daniel, Jack and Ronon were all there in their usual booth, but John was still among the missing. "Where's John?" Rodney asked quickly.

Jack nodded towards the door. "Just got in. Why? Aren't you two roomies?"

Jack was smirking, but Rodney wasn't paying attention to him any longer. John was walking in, wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday, and he had weird dark circles beneath his eyes. It seemed unfair that even dead they had to worry about things like beauty sleep.

Not that John didn't still look gorgeous.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Rodney demanded.

John shot him a wide smile and slid into the booth. "Didn't know I had a curfew," he said.

Rodney glared at him and sat down next to Daniel. "A phone call would have been nice."

"I wouldn't waste time worrying about him, newbie," Jack said. "Shep can take care of himself."

"Shep?" Rodney asked.

"Ignore him, Rodney," John said quietly. "Jack just likes to hear himself talk."

Jack snorted, and passed out the assignments. "Daniel's the one that likes to hear himself talk."

Daniel glared at Jack, and snatched his post-it out of his hand.

Rodney kicked John under the table. "Seriously, where have you been?"

"Don't worry about it," John said.

"He goes off sometimes," Daniel confided. "John's the mysterious one. I've never been able to get a straight answer out of him."

"Just because I'm not the open book you are doesn't mean I'm mysterious," John said wryly.

"I'm going to have to agree and go with mysterious," Rodney said petulantly.

John looked away from him and Jack gave a large sigh. "I'm guessing you're wanting to be alone today?" he asked John. John didn't respond. "That's a yes then," Jack said, looking over at Daniel and Rodney. "That means you two get to spend the day together again."

"I don't need a baby-sitter anymore," Rodney said irritably.

"Well, if you don't, Daniel does. It's kind of the blind leading the blind, but since I doubt I'll get Ronon to play nice..." Jack looked over at Ronon.

Ronon grabbed his post-it and snorted. "I work alone," he said, before jumping over the back of the booth and heading towards the door.

"You guys are the light of my life, seriously, have I ever told you that?" Jack called out loudly. Ronon flipped him off and then the bells over the door were ringing, and the door was slamming shut.

Daniel smiled at him. "We _are_ your life."

"Danny-boy," Jack said, grinning, "you do realize that you have no life whatsoever, right? You spend your nights watching hockey with me, which you _hate_, so don't pretend you do."

"At least I have a job that I love," Daniel protested. "Your job consists of writing names on post-its."

"Your job is _morbid_," Jack said.

"How is it morbid?" Rodney asked curiously. "Correction: how is it more morbid than what we _all_ do?"

"Jack thinks it's morbid because it's where I died," Daniel said.

"How did you die?" Rodney asked, glancing at John from the corner of his eye. John looked away, and Rodney crossed his arms. It didn't seem fair that they all knew exactly how he had died, and he didn't know anything about them.

"Curiosity killed Daniel," Jack said dryly.

"It was a museum accident," Daniel told him, throwing a glare in Jack's direction.

"What?" Rodney snapped. "You mean you got your old job back? I thought we weren't allowed to do that?"

"Oh, I didn't work there before," Daniel told him. "I worked mostly out of the country, I was an archeologist, you know. I was only visiting here for a weekend, and this was decades ago anyway. I was there setting up an exhibit, and a stone slab fell on me. It was all pretty gory, actually, when they lifted it back up I was--"

Jack slammed his hand over Daniel's mouth. "I'm trying to eat here. I know you found it fascinating, but let's try not to scare the newbie."

Daniel pushed Jack's hand away. "Anyway," Daniel continued unfazed, "long story short, I'm the curator at the museum now. They have a nice plaque up in memoriam for me. It's very tasteful."

"Jack's right," Rodney said, "that _is_ morbid." He looked back to get agreement from John, but John was no longer there. Rodney frowned. "Where did--?"

"Oh, he does that too," Daniel said. "I told you he was the mysterious one, but Jack vetoed me when I suggested we make him wear a bell."

Jack ruffled Daniel's hair. "Actually I said I'd suggest he wear one if you let me get you a leash."

"Whatever, Jack," Daniel said, rolling his eyes. He pushed Rodney out of the booth. "Let's get out of here."

"I haven't eaten," Rodney protested.

"You can pick something up later," Daniel said. "My reap is in twenty minutes and across town."

"You kids have fun now," Jack called after them.

Rodney and Daniel both glared at him, but it did nothing to dim Jack's bright grin.

-----

Rodney watched as Daniel's reap disappeared into a giant glowing blue birthday cake. "I could go for some cake," he said. Any food would be nice, really. He hadn't eaten dinner the night before and Daniel had dragged him away from his breakfast.

Daniel, however, Rodney was learning, didn't like wasting time with things like food. Daniel was almost comically easily distracted. At the moment, he was squinting at the disappearing lights like the fate of the universe was in his hands. "What do you think yours would be?" Daniel asked, glancing at him. "You know, your lights?"

Rodney sighed, giving up on food for now. "I think it would be my lab," Rodney said. "Or maybe a giant cat."

Daniel nodded thoughtfully. "I think mine would be an obelisk, or some kind of cartouche. Maybe a Sphinx," he said, before getting distracted again and wandering off down the street. "What's your reap's ETD?"

Rodney followed him, glancing down at his own post-it. _D. Everett. Ellis Court. ETD: 10:30 a.m._. "10:30," he said. "Don't you have to be at work?"

"Not today," Daniel said. "How goes your own job hunt?"

"Non-existent," Rodney said irritably. "Atlantis Labs is the best in the area, and the best deserves the best."

"Then why don't you work there?" Daniel asked.

"Because I know the people," Rodney said. "Isn't that breaking some of the rules?"

Daniel grinned wryly. "Yeah, probably. I don't have a problem with that. Do you?"

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "John tells me you're a trouble-maker," he said.

Daniel shrugged. "He's probably right about that, but then, John's broken a few rules himself."

Rodney caught pace beside him. "How long have you known John?"

"Since I died," Daniel said. "He and Jack were both there. It was the last reap of a friend of theirs."

"Really?"

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, Aiden Ford, I think his name was."

"When did you die?" Rodney asked. Daniel seemed to be the only one that didn't mind talking about it. Rodney wondered if there was a subject Daniel _would_ mind talking about.

"1973," Daniel told him. "I'm almost sixty-five years old now."

"You look good for your age," Rodney said.

Daniel grinned over at him. "I guess. It might have been fun to grow old, though."

"How old is John, do you think?" Rodney asked, trying to sound casual.

Daniel threw him a sideways glance. "You seem pretty interested in John."

"I'm living with him," Rodney said. "I just get curious. Wouldn't you be curious?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed like he knew there was more to it than that, but after a moment he just shrugged. "I think he died in the sixties," Daniel told him. "I don't know anymore than that. John doesn't...talk about things."

Rodney glared at him. "I thought you were the one with the answers," he said petulantly.

"No," Daniel said ruefully. "I'm just the one with questions."

-----

After his reap, Rodney went home and raided the kitchen, partly because he was feeling a little light-headed, and partly to get his mind off the latest death. It hadn't been pretty. Electrocution, Rodney decided, was not a good way to die. The man had looked twice as old by the time the current had stopped running through him.

Still, he had to wonder at how calmly everyone but him seemed to accept their death. Maybe it was because they knew instinctively somehow that it was almost over, that they got their lights and got to cross over. Rodney hadn't had that feeling, because he'd been chosen to be a grim reaper instead.

"This sucks," he told Thales.

Thales just curled up next to him and started purring. Things were a lot simpler in Thales' world, and while Rodney liked to think Thales remembered him, the cat probably just liked him because he gave him food.

John came back early this time, and Rodney watched him as he went straight to the kitchen, hopped up on the counter and pulled down a box of Captain Crunch.

"So what's up with you?" Rodney asked. "Are you bored with me or something?"

John spun over the top of the counter so he was sitting facing him. He grinned. "No, I just had some things to do."

"What kind of things?" Rodney asked.

"The personal kind," John told him.

"We're undead. I thought we weren't allowed personal things," Rodney said.

"Wow. You're in a good mood today," John said wryly.

"Daniel told me that I should get my old job back," Rodney said. "It's extremely high paying, so I figure--"

"Whoa, hold it," John interrupted. "Don't let Daniel give you any ideas. Jack will let Daniel get away with murder, but that's Daniel."

"What does that mean?" Rodney snapped.

"It means he doesn't let the rest of us get away with anything, and I've told you before, you don't want to piss Jack off."

"Have you pissed him off?" Rodney asked. "Have you ever done something he didn't like?"

"I piss him off all the time," John said. "One time I called him away from an episode of The Simpsons, and take it from me, it was bad; man, was he furious."

"I'm serious here," Rodney said. "You've been at this a lot longer than me, you said, so shouldn't you be helping me out instead of spouting a bunch of greeting card dribble? Move on, leave your burdens behind, etc upon mind-numbing etc?"

"Well what do you want me to say?" John asked, setting the cereal box aside. "Be miserable? Go back to your life and let it destroy you? Does that help?"

"Some sharing would be nice," Rodney said, crossing his arms. "We've known each other almost a month and you probably know everything there is to know about me. I don't know anything about you."

"There's nothing to know," John said. "I lived, and then I died. No one cared, no one cried, and I didn't give a fuck one way or another."

"I don't believe that," Rodney said. "You couldn't just die and _not care_ ..."

"You say that because things are different for you now," John said. "You can't see your friends. You can't do your job. Nothing much changed for me, so I've got nothing to mourn."

"John..."

"You can use my bed tonight, if you want," John told him, as he hopped off the counter.

"John..." Rodney started again.

"I'm flying a little further than usual, so I'll probably stay the night in a motel. If I'm late, you can tell Jack where I am."

"John," Rodney didn't know why he was bothering. He might as well be silent for as much attention as John would pay him.

John went out the door without looking back, and didn't even have the decency to slam it shut. John couldn't even be bothered to pretend his conversation with Rodney had affected him in any way, because that damn cool he'd admired at first didn't seem to break.

Rodney picked Thales up and wandered back into the bedroom. He collapsed down on the bed, and that was when he saw what had been in front of him all along.

The photo wasn't shiny or glossy like all the rest, it wasn't cut from some magazine; it wasn't even framed. It was old, tinged a little brown with age and frayed around the edges. John was in the center, looking exactly as he still looked, standing smartly in a flight suit in front of a helicopter. Two other men were with him, their arms all around each other, smiling like they were vacationing somewhere and not stationed in a jungle.

There were three sets of dog tags just beside it. One pair belonged to a John Sheppard. Rodney held the dog tags in his hand, and it was suddenly a little hard to breathe, because he'd somehow thought it would bring them closer if he only knew. Now he had a good guess how John had died, and he'd never seemed more untouchable.

It was hard to reconcile the smiling man in that photo with the John he knew; the smile was the same one he'd seen a hundred times already, but in that photo, it didn't look forced or practiced, it looked genuine.

Rodney wondered how long John had between that picture and his death.

-----

Rodney woke up, curled around John's pillow, Thales stretched at the foot of the bed and the sound of running water in the kitchen. He stumbled, bleary eyed towards the noise, squinting in the bright light at John's back. "You're back."

John turned. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

Rodney waved a dismissive hand, flopping into a chair at the kitchen table. "What time is it?"

"Close to three," John answered. "Coffee?"

Rodney was tempted, but knew if he accepted that would be it for sleep, he'd be awake the rest of the night. "No, thanks." John nodded, flicking off the coffee maker. "Aren't you going to have any?"

"I just finished," John smiled. "I got back around one thirty; you were dead to the world...no pun intended." He winked, slouching against the counter.

Rodney rolled his eyes, but there was a smirk tugging at his lips. He stifled a yawn, watching John through blurry eyes. "You should get some sleep."

John shrugged. "I'm good, but you should go back to bed." He grinned. "I don't give up my bed often so you should definitely take advantage."

Rodney shoved away the inappropriate thoughts _that_ statement produced and pushed away from the table. "Well, if you're going to make me go back to sleeping on the couch tomorrow then I am definitely taking advantage tonight." He quirked a shy grin at John and said goodnight before shuffling back towards John's bed--Thales in the same position he was in when Rodney had gotten up.

Climbing back under the blankets Rodney shifted until he was comfortable, arm automatically curling around John's pillow again. With a contented sigh he was asleep in minutes.

John stood at the doorway to his room, watching Rodney snore quietly, a smile playing across his mouth before he disappeared back into the living room to wait the coming morning.

----

Rodney dove into his breakfast, not wanting another day to start with him being dragged away because his 'baby-sitter' couldn't wait five minutes. He hoped that Jack paired him with John today--not that Daniel wasn't nice and all but Rodney was really hoping to have the chance to grill John about where he was and what was going on.

As things rarely went Rodney's way, Jack paired him with Ronon. His eyes widened when Ronon bared his teeth, his long dreads swinging to and fro as he stood, swishing his trench coat behind him. Swallowing Rodney threw a glare at Jack and a 'help-me' look towards John. He wasn't surprised when neither worked. Following Ronon from O'Malley's he tilted his head. "So--"

Not surprisingly things went downhill from there. It turned out that Ronon was not a chatty person, he liked knives--lots and lots of knives, and he took a disturbing pleasure in reaping. Whereas he'd now been witness to both John and Daniel reaping on numerous occasions, not to mention his own reaps, this was the first time he'd seen Ronon in action. And Ronon enjoyed it. John and Daniel and even he himself were somewhat somber when it came to reaping--Ronon looked like he was about to get laid. That in and of itself disturbed Rodney to no end.

Although he had to admit he got a perverse amount of amusement over the reactions Ronon got from passersby. He may not look the same to them as he did to Rodney and the others, but he was still very large and very intimidating and everyone gave him plenty of space.

Today's reap was some stoner skateboarder who, when he popped up beside them, tilted his head back (way back) to see Ronon as he muttered, "Duuuude." Rodney rolled his eyes when Ronon engaged the stoner in some complicated handshake before mumbling something Rodney couldn't quite catch. Then came the shimmering lights and the largest skatepark Rodney had every seen and the stoner yelled 'Sweet!' and took off running, disappearing with the light.

The one good thing about Ronon though, was that he loved to eat even more than Rodney and after they'd done Ronon's reap they killed time waiting for Rodney's in some biker bar Ronon fit perfectly into and Rodney stood out of like a sore thumb. They ate onion rings and fries, had a couple beers and watched the TV above the bar playing the strong man competitions. Rodney didn't really feel inclined to try and make conversation with Ronon, but thought with a mental sigh that if Jack was going to start forcing him to go out on reaps with Ronon he should probably at least pretend to be interested in the man's life—or death...whatever.

Clearing his throat, Rodney rolled his bottle of beer between his hands. "So, how did you end up here?"

Ronon shrugged, tossing a peanut into his mouth. "Found it one day after a reap."

Rodney frowned. "I'm not talking about the bar--how did you become a reaper?"

He turned and looked Rodney in the eye. "I died."

Rolling his eyes in exasperation Rodney snapped, "I never would have guessed, thank you so much for solving the answer to i that /i question! I'm asking _how_ you died, Ronon."

Ronon's eyes narrowed as he growled. "That's none of your business, McKay."

Gulping a little at the look in Ronon's eyes Rodney nodded. "Right--none of my business." When Ronon turned back towards the TV, Rodney fiddled with the label on the bottle. "It's just that--well I mean Daniel got squashed, John I think died in the war, I have no idea how Jack died but I get the feeling no one is really sure and I figured you all know how I died--"

His head snapped up when Ronon's bottled rattled the table as he slammed it down. "You talk a lot."

"Yes, well--I tend to do that when I'm nervous and when the person I'm with refuses to engage in any type of conversation," Rodney said defensively.

A smirk tugged at Ronon's mouth and he regarded Rodney for a moment before leaning back in his chair. "I was shot."

"Shot?" Rodney's eyes widened. "Like--mugged and shot or in a war and shot..."

"As in killed in a shoot out at the bank I was robbing."

"You were a bank robber?" Rodney squeaked, eyes wide in shock.

Another shrug and Ronon reached for his beer. "Needed the money."

"Oh my God," Rodney said, horrified. "And you couldn't just—oh I don't know, get a job?"

Snorting, Ronon took a swig from his beer, "Not many people want to hire a convict."

Rodney rubbed his temples, willing away the oncoming headache. "What were you convicted of?"

"Kidnapping," he rumbled.

Rodney's mouth dropped—God, he was sitting with a kidnapper and bank robber...this was the type of people the almighty chose to make reapers? "Who did you kidnap?" Rodney asked warily.

Ronon's eyes slid up to look at him before turning back to the plate of fries in front of him. "My fiancée."

He wasn't sure what surprised him more—that Ronon was actually answering his questions, or that Ronon had been engaged.

"You were engaged?"

"Her father didn't approve," he shrugged. "We ran away together--he found us."

"What happened?"

"He told the authorities that I had kidnapped his daughter--he was well respected in the town and no one was going to take my word for it over his. They arrested me and I spent the next four years of my life in jail—then I escaped."

"You escaped?"

"I would have been left to die in that prison if I hadn't—escaping seemed like the thing to do."

Rodney nodded. "Why didn't your fiancée tell the authorities you didn't kidnap her?"

Finishing off his beer, Ronon looked Rodney in the eye and said, "She never got the chance."

Rodney frowned, "What do you mean? What happened to her?"

Shifting in his seat, Ronon turned back to the TV without a word. Rodney didn't ask him anything else.

----

"So," Rodney said when he got home that evening after his reap, "I need a job."

John looked up from where he was lounged on the couch doing a crossword puzzle. "Okay," he agreed.

Rodney lifted John's feet, flopping onto the couch beside him and letting John's feet rest on his lap. He laid his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. "I have three doctorates, degrees and brains coming out my ears," Rodney said with a sigh.

John raised an eyebrow, lips twitching as Rodney tapped out some random tune on his ankles. "You're dead now, Rodney--as I keep reminding you," John said with a smile. "In this life...you don't have any of those fancy degrees or PhDs. But with brains coming out your ears you shouldn't have any trouble finding a job." He laughed at the glare Rodney shot him.

"The problem is," Rodney continued as if John hadn't spoken, "is that I'm over qualified for pretty much every job out there and besides--I'm too brilliant to waste on some mediocre job. I can still make a difference..."

"Rodney," John warned. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like where this was going.

"I could fake the credentials proving I have my doctorates--no one would look too closely because my brilliance would be enough to prove I've got brains--"

"Coming out your ears," John nodded, pulling his feet from Rodney's lap and twisting so he was sitting beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

"Exactly," Rodney beamed.

John placed a hand on Rodney's knee, shaking his head. "You can't go back."

"But--"

"No, Rodney--you _can't_." John turned to stare at Rodney's profile. "Jack wouldn't let you, you know that."

Closing his eyes, Rodney swallowed thickly. "This sucks," he whispered hoarsely.

John squeezed Rodney's leg, patting it gently and saying in an overly cheerful tone, "How bout I help you find a job?"

Rodney smiled, not opening his eyes. "Thanks."

"No problem," John grinned, pushing up off the couch. "You hungry?"

"Do you need to ask?" Rodney smiled crookedly, holding out a hand and letting John pull him up off the couch. As Rodney followed John into the kitchen to find something for supper he asked with wide eyes, "Hey, did you know Ronon hides knives in his hair?"

John burst out laughing, throwing an arm around Rodney's shoulder. "You don't want to know where else he hides them."

Rodney snickered as John pulled away, opening the fridge. Leaning his hip against the counter Rodney asked, "So, do you have any plans for tomorrow?"

John nodded. "Tomorrow--I'm finding you a job."

-----

"This is ridiculous," Rodney snapped. "I'm not going into a place called 'Happy Time'."

"Shut up and smile," John told him sweetly, before pushing him inside and directly into one of the stiff black chairs in the waiting area. "Dolores doesn't help people she doesn't like." John pulled out a portfolio, and held it out to him. "Now, here's your fake diplomas, your new driver's license, your birth certificate, just in case..."

"Hold it," Rodney snapped. "Emmett Brown? Are you kidding? You named me Emmett Brown?"

John flashed him a wide grin. "I love that movie. It was the first name to enter my mind--besides, I think you could totally pull 'mad scientist' off."

"You fucking bastard!" Rodney hissed.

"My, such language!"

Rodney glanced up at the startled exclamation. A woman smiled down at him falsely, taking him in with wide eyes. "I'm Dolores. Dolores Herbig. As in _her big_ brown eyes." Dolores pointed to her eyes for further illustration.

Rodney despised her instantly, but John nudged him and hissed, "smile" so he forced his lips to tilt up.

Dolores held out her hand, and caught his. She shook it quickly before letting go and turning on her heel. "Now, let's see if we can't get you situated, Dr. Brown."

Dolores led him to a small cubicle at the far side of the room, and Rodney carefully sat down across from her. "Emmett Brown," she murmured. "Emmett Brown. Dr. Brown. That is so familiar. Have we met before?"

"No," Rodney said, smiling again, wide and false and until his lips hurt. John was lucky Rodney liked him so much, or he might have had to exact vicious revenge for naming him after someone from the absolutely ludicrous _Back to the Future_ trilogy.

Dolores smiled back. "Oh well, no matter." She took his portfolio and began to sort through it. "My, you are qualified, aren't you? I think you're the most qualified I've ever had! How did you find your way to Happy Time, Dr. Brown?"

Because he'd died and gone to hell. Rodney fought to keep the smile in place. "Someone close to me died and I had to take some time off."

"Oh," Dolores said, putting on an exaggerated pout. "How sad. Let's see..." Dolores turned to her computer and started typing. "Well, this looks promising," she said. "Someone just died over at Atlantis Labs, so there's an opening."

Rodney tried not to wince. "Dr. McKay, wasn't it?" he asked casually. "I've heard he was irreplaceable."

"Oh, dear, no one is irreplaceable," Dolores said. "It says right here, looking for Theoretical Astrophysicist, which you are, are you not?"

"Well, yes, but I can't work there," Rodney said. "I knew Dr. McKay. Wonderful man. I wouldn't feel right."

Dolores frowned. "Hmm, well, alright, let's see here..." She started typing again. "There's also an opening at DST Corporations. It's headed by a Dr. Lee. Do you know him?"

"Dr. Lee?" Rodney snapped. "They put him in charge? That incompetent--" Rodney stopped himself at Dolores' startled look, and forced the smile back into place. "That sounds...great," he said haltingly.

Dolores smiled. "Well, wonderful. Just wonderful. I'm sure that Dr. Lee will be pleased."

John was waiting for him by the water cooler when he wandered back out. "How did it go?" he asked pleasantly.

Rodney glared at him. "I _hate_ you," he said.

John grinned widely. "That well, huh?"

------

Rodney started work the next day. DST had been looking for a replacement for months with no luck, and they were desperate for the help. John sent him off to work with a smile and lunch money and Rodney pushed his post-it deep into his pocket. He'd have to ask for a cigarette break or something around four o'clock, so he could go take someone's soul.

Dr. Lee was as stupid as Rodney remembered him being, which was evidenced by the fact that he'd hired Dr. Felger on as his next in charge.

Rodney decided that if he were still alive, he'd probably have to kill himself.

"We're called DST on account of us doing Deep Space Telemetry," Felger told him. "It's like an Acronym."

"It _is_ an Acronym, you fucking moron!" Rodney didn't actually say this, of course, but he thought it really, really loudly as he stood there smiling and nodding like John had told him to.

"Your office is just over here, Dr. Brown," Felger said, leading him into a small six by six foot room with a computer desk and a chair, and fluorescent lighting. "We have an instant message network set up so that we don't have to waste time running around the office to ask questions. With your qualifications, I'm sure you'll figure everything out."

There was a huge stack of paper sitting in his inbox. Data backlogs and data entry. Hell was starting to look promising, if it got him away from here.

"Chloe, my assistant," Felger continued, "was transferred over to Atlantis Labs recently, so you'll probably have to do some data entry before you can get to the fun stuff. Call if you need anything!"

"Hey, wait!" Rodney snapped, but Felger was gone. Felger was maybe not as stupid as Rodney had thought, because he'd just effortlessly dumped all of the grunt work into someone else's lap. Rodney reluctantly stepped into the small office and sat in front of the computer.

He looked over the reports in his inbox. It had all been transferred in from Atlantis Labs. He remembered back in the good old days, when Radek would ask him what he wanted to do with all this fucking useless information (only Radek had never said fucking, that was paraphrasing) and Rodney would tell him, send it to those poor saps over at DST.

He slammed his head onto his desk and wished he could go back to being John's kept man.

Rodney moaned. Thinking of John didn't help his mood at all. John was taking mysterious to extremes, and the more he did glean about his former life, the less he felt he actually knew. Rodney bit his lip, getting an idea.

He pushed his inbox to the edge of the desk and out of the way, and then brought up Google on his computer. He ran a search for the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall and easily found a site dedicated to it, There was a search page to look for the dead.

He typed John's name, and wasn't surprised to find him.

He had been a Major in the Air Force, killed on November 7th, 1966, when his helicopter was shot down over Quang Nam, South Vietnam. The body was never recovered.

-----

Rodney was exhausted by the time he dragged himself back into John's apartment. In some ways it had been nice to have any kind of connection to his old life, and even Dr. Lee and Dr. Felger were vaguely familiar and almost comforting, despite that he knew them mostly by reputation, and had only seen them in person a couple of times.

But mostly it was just degrading, letting his brilliant mind go to waste like this.

Spending his one half-hour break watching someone fall to their death from a fifth story balcony hadn't exactly cheered him up any, either.

He'd been planning to sit in front of the TV, and probably fall asleep the moment he made it home. He seemed to be sleeping a lot lately, but dying took a lot out of you.

He hadn't expected John to be at the door to greet him, smiling like he hadn't for awhile, and actually looking happy to see him. "How was work?" he asked.

Rodney blinked at him, and then moved inside. "Hell on Earth," he said. "Forget fire and brimstone. Hell is florescent lighting and knockoff desk chairs."

"I'm glad you had fun," John said brightly, seemingly impervious to Rodney's bad mood. He rocked back on his heels, looking strangely pleased with himself. "I made you dinner."

Rodney continued watching him, not quite making sense of the words. "You what?"

"I _made you dinner_," John repeated, speaking slower, and with an amused drawl. "As a kind of congratulations for your new suck-ass job."

Rodney looked past John and saw that the table had indeed been set. Candles had been set around a large bowl of pasta, beside a cutting board with a fresh loaf of bread and grated Parmesan. Like the rest of John's apartment, it looked like it had come straight out of a magazine. "Do you like watch a lot of Martha Stewart or something?" Rodney asked.

Thales was asleep under the table, in a satisfied sleep, with some tomato sauce smeered on his ear. Rodney was glad that at least Thales had caught a break when he died--Thales had never been happier.

John rolled his eyes at him. "You're just supposed to say, 'thank you, John'."

"Thank you, John," Rodney said, and John ushered him into a chair and sat him down, before falling into the chair across from him. Rodney couldn't really stop staring at John. The most unbelievable thing about this last month probably should have been the fact that he was dead and still going strong, but it wasn't, it was John.

John seemed too good to be true, a little like he'd walked out of a magazine himself, and Rodney kept trying to figure out how he'd gone from the soldier in that picture to this. He wanted to ask him how it had happened, how he had died, how he had moved on. i If /i he had really moved on at all.

Except John didn't want him to know. John would let him live here, would make him dinners, make him coffee, but he wouldn't tell him one damn thing that meant something. He wouldn't reveal anything that might give himself away.

John reached across the table and poured some wine into the glass beside his plate, before sitting back down and filling his own. "You can still be happy, you know," John told him. "Your life is over, but something new is starting."

Rodney nodded, wondering if John had ever taken his own advice. "Yeah, I guess. My new life of data entry and soul-nabbing."

"Yeah, well," John said. "There's other stuff too."

Before Rodney could ask what he'd meant by that, John was already moving on. "So here's to being dead like us," he said, and lifted his glass with a bright smile. Rodney lifted his own glass and echoed the toast, deciding as he did that John never looked sadder than when he was smiling.


	3. Ghost Story

**_Ghost Story_**

* * *

Despite the fact that Rodney hated DST with every fiber of his being, and despite the fact that Lee and Felger were quite possibly the most incompetent buffoons he'd ever met, he was beginning to find his rhythm again. After wading through the backlog of paperwork that had met him on his first day on the job, Rodney had insinuated himself into the midst of Lee's and Felger's latest project. It didn't hurt that Felger seemed to spend most of his time; head perched on his fist, staring off into space. Rodney had no problem letting the man daydream the day away--it simply meant he had free reign of the lab.

Lee seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time playing the poor, destitute scientist, begging for funding from this organization or that branch of the government in order to keep the lab afloat. Again, it just meant Rodney was free to do things as he saw fit, which brought back many a pleasant memory as he yelled at the peons, watching them scurry away with their proverbial tails between their legs.

Difficult though it was, he still managed to pull himself away from the lab to do his daily reap before hurrying back and burying himself in his projects once more. Every night he would trudge home to John's apartment, eyes half-closed as he aimed the key for the lock. Most nights John was there, waiting up with an affectionate smile that still made Rodney's heart beat faster no matter how many times he saw it.

John would ask how his day went, how his reap went, when he last ate and then begin to pull various things from the fridge or cupboards to throw something together for Rodney to eat before ushering him off to bed.

A couple of weeks before, John had surprised Rodney. He had a small room that had been serving as a storage space, one that Rodney had begun to take advantage of, storing his limited belongings inside. One night Rodney had arrived home from work, dead on his feet, and John had led him towards the room, opening the door and pushing Rodney inside, despite his protests, before switching on the light.

Rodney's eyes were wide, taking in his surroundings. John had cleared the room of its clutter, replacing it with a single bed, dresser, desk and a few other odds and ends that made the room feel homier. Turning, Rodney saw John's hesitant and hopeful look, waiting for Rodney's approval or disappointment.

When Rodney had asked why John had gone to so much trouble he'd simply shrugged, and with a self-deprecating smile said, "_My_ back was getting sore from watching you sleep on the couch."

Feeling slightly overwhelmed Rodney had huffed that it wasn't as big as John's room but he supposed it would do. He could feel himself beginning to blush under John's amused scrutiny. Crossing his arms over his chest he tilted his head to the side, grinning crookedly. "Thank you."

John smiled brightly and said, "You're welcome."

Since that moment--and if he was being honest, even before that--Rodney had started thinking of John's apartment as home.

Pushing the door open, Rodney sighed. It had been a long day and he'd made a lot of progress at work, but he was glad to be home. He had to admit that before he died he'd spent the majority of his time at the lab, but now, now that he actually had someone to come home to--even if he wasn't technically coming home to John--he didn't mind leaving the lab at the end of the day. Yes, he still stayed longer than anyone else, but whereas when he was living he would be, more often than not, likely to sleep at the lab, he found himself shutting down his projects around ten every night, wondering if John was already home.

Rodney could hear John's muffled voice, tight in anger, coming from his bedroom. He couldn't hear what John was saying but his tone made it clear he wasn't happy. Rodney walked to his own room, throwing his stuff in the corner, peeled out of his work-clothes and changed into jogging pants and a t-shirt. Thales was curled up in the middle of Rodney's bed and Rodney ran his hand gently through his soft fur, grinning when he began to purr even in sleep.

Hearing John's bedroom door open roughly, Rodney stepped out, seeing John's tensed back as he stormed into the kitchen. Following him, Rodney paused in the doorway, "Hey."

John turned, the scowl on his face quickly being replaced by his ever-present mask. He smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes, as he looked at Rodney. "Hey--how was your day?"

"I'm guessing better than yours," Rodney said, stepping into the kitchen. "What's going on?"

John shrugged, waving a hand dismissively before turning to the fridge. "Nothing."

"John--"

"It's nothing, Rodney." The tone was deceptively light, but Rodney could hear the underlying annoyance and unspoken 'back off'.

Rodney ignored it, pressing on, "Who was on the phone?"

Sighing loudly, John turned, eyes narrowed. "If I say it's none of your business, will you--"

"Ignore you and continue to ask?" Rodney nodded. "Pretty much."

Rolling his eyes and fighting the smirk that wanted to escape John pulled two beers from the fridge. "It was a client."

Rodney frowned. "A client?" He took the offered beer and followed John to the living room, flopping onto the couch beside him. John flicked on the TV, the sound down low as he flipped through channel after channel not stopping long enough to see what was on any of them. "You told me you fly people on tours--"

"I do," John interrupted, taking a swig from his beer. "But during the off season I take on a few odd jobs--doing cargo runs or playing chauffeur."

"And this client--"

"Let's just say he'd prefer I only worked for him." John replied before swiftly changing the subject. "Are you hungry?"

Rodney doesn't take the bait, folding his arms over his chest and pinning John with a determined scowl. "There's more to it than you're telling me."

"Its fine, Rodney," John shook his head, a disarming smile on his face. "Don't worry about it."

"Funny thing is," Rodney started, "I can't not worry."

"Aw, I didn't know you cared." John grinned.

"Shut up--stop trying to distract me with your cocky smirk and insane hair." Rodney huffed in annoyance but there was a little truth to what he said--John was a big distraction; not one he's at all interested in ever getting rid of and one he'd most definitely like to do something about, but that's neither here nor there at the moment. "Tell me what's going on, John."

John glared at Rodney, hand gingerly touching his hair before sinking into the couch, his own arms folding over his chest and Rodney could swear he'd started to pout, but then he said, "He's some rich asshole that's used to getting what he wants. He doesn't like the fact that I prefer flying the tours and has been hounding me with offers, each more extravagant than the next, in order to lure me away from my current job. Like I said--off season I take a few odd jobs here and there and I've been flying for him for a couple months now."

"Who is it?" Rodney's frowning now because this doesn't sound so much about work as it sounds personal.

John waved his hand as if to push away thoughts of his 'client', "His name is Kolya--he's rich enough to have a small army, but for the most part is harmless. He's more annoying than anything." John smiled falsely with a quirk of his eyebrow and Rodney could easily see the lie. "So--is the interrogation over?"

Rodney huffed, but nodded. "For now."

Rolling his eyes John asked again, "So--hungry?"

Rodney looked thoughtful for a moment before grinning crookedly at John. "You buying?"

John laughed, patting Rodney's leg before pushing himself up, off the couch to find the take-out menus.

----

Rodney woke up to the sound of John's voice in the other room, sounding angry again. It still threw him a little; before yesterday, he hadn't know John _could_ get angry. He heard no one respond, so he figured John was either on the phone or having some kind of nervous breakdown. He crawled out of bed, and ran a hand over Thales' back as a good morning before wandering out into the living room.

"I don't give a fuck," John was yelling, and he _was_ on the phone, which was good. Rodney couldn't deal with nervous breakdowns before his morning coffee. "I'm self-employed for a reason; I'm not going to be your errand boy."

John had some kind of sixth sense where Rodney was concerned, because he knew without looking that he'd entered the room and he instinctively lowered his voice.

"I can't do this now," he said quickly, and then bit his lip, and hung up the phone. He looked strangely distraught and vulnerable as he turned to place the phone back in its carriage, but he was smiling by the time he turned back around.

"Hey, Rodney," he said brightly. "Sleep well?" He was apparently going to use the old 'angry phone call? What angry phone call?' ploy again today. How utterly predictable.

John handed him a steaming mug of coffee and turned on the charm a bit higher, taking the wattage of his smile from pleasant to dazzling without any visible effort, and obviously trying to distract him. Rodney hated that it almost worked.

Sometimes Rodney thought John had some kind of internal switch. He could go from brooding and mysterious to Stepford wife in less time than it took Rodney to blink. It was actually more than a little disturbing, because as much as he loved John doing things for him, he always felt bizarrely guilty about it, like John was trying to make up for something he couldn't ever fix.

"Was that the Kolya asshole again?" Rodney asked.

John sighed and jumped up onto the counter. John always sought higher ground when he was feeling cornered. "No, it was my mother," he said.

Rodney sipped at the coffee, and managed to roll his eyes at the same time. "Why do you keep doing things for him if he's so awful? You've been looking like the walking dead for weeks now."

John smirked. "Apt," he said.

"Oh, shut up," Rodney snapped. "You know what I mean. Just drop him."

"He pays really well," John said and shrugged; then he flashed another grin. "I just want to be able to buy you nice things."

Rodney glared at him. It always threw him when John said things like that; he had a feeling it was just John's way of deflecting his attention, and honestly, it was true enough that the man would flirt with _anything_. He'd had Thales eating out of his hand within the first ten minutes. John was probably just having some harmless fun, but Rodney was dead, not celibate, and he never knew how to respond. One of his biggest regrets about dying was that he'd never learned to flirt while he was still alive.

"You make the best coffee," he said after a moment's hesitation. "What more could I ask for?"

John laughed, but it sounded a little forced, like he had to work at it. He reached across the counter and grabbed something, before pressing it into Rodney's palm. "For you," he said sweetly.

Rodney grimaced. "You shouldn't have," he said wryly, glaring at the post-it.

"I went out running this morning and ran into Jack, thought I'd save you the trip to O'Malley's today," he explained.

"You run?" Rodney asked, looking mortified. "What the hell for? We're dead."

"That's no excuse not to be healthy," John said, smiling at the irony of his own statement, but looking strangely sincere at the same time.

Rodney's mind was boggling. "We've lived together for weeks, I've never seen you run."

"I'm usually back before you're awake," John said wryly. "You're welcome to join me if you want. I would have asked earlier, but you didn't strike me as the morning jog type."

The thought of John sweaty and running was tempting, but not _that_ tempting. "When hell freezes over, I might start running for fun," he said. "Until then I'll stick with sleeping in."

John laughed again and jumped off the counter. "I've gotta head out," he said. "Don't wait up. I'll probably be late."

Rodney pursed his lips shut to keep from saying something nagging like 'again' or 'that's the third time this week!' "Whatever," he said, instead, but John wasn't fooled.

"You've got a late reap tonight anyway," John said, nodding towards Rodney's post-it, apparently intending for that to be some kind of comfort, when really it just made things worse.

"What are you doing today?" Rodney asked. He was going for casual, but even he could hear the worry in his voice.

"You worry too much," John said grinning. "You're dead, Rodney, live a little."

"That makes no sense!" Rodney shouted after him, but John just waved at him brightly, and then disappeared out the door.

-----

He went out his office window at quarter to five, because Felger kept messaging him these pathetic little comments about how he missed his former assistant Chloe, and he'd never known what he'd had until he'd lost her. He'd figured he either had to leave early or take Felger's soul without a post-it, and skipping out early seemed like less of a hassle.

It was actually kind of fun. He'd never skipped out on work before, because i work /i used to be his fun. He bet John used to climb out windows all the time.

He spent the next two hours in the park, sitting alone on a swing and waiting for J. Harold to show up and die. Harold sat on the swings with him for awhile, after he'd walked by the construction site at the wrong time and got knocked in the face by one of the worker's errant shovel, smashing his nose up into his skull.

"So I'm dead?" he'd asked.

"Yeah," Rodney told him. Then, feeling obligated to give him some words of wisdom he said, "Go into the light, my friend, go into the light."

J. Harold's lights appeared flickering in front of them, shaping into the Eiffel Tower. "I never did get to see it," he said.

"You can see it now," Rodney told him, and then the lights and J. Harold disappeared, and he was alone again, swinging in time with the ambulance sirens coming closer from somewhere far away.

Being a Grim Reaper wasn't the worst job to have, Rodney decided. It wasn't so terribly depressing as it probably should be. Most of the time they weren't even sad.

It was being left behind that made people sad.

He knew he shouldn't, but he ended up outside of Atlantis Labs. The lights were still on, but that wasn't surprising. Atlantis Labs had better scientists than DST; it had the kind that never sleeps. He could see Radek's backlit silhouette at the third floor window, and Rodney wondered if Radek was sad.

He felt bad about it, but Rodney kind of wanted someone to be sad about him, and Radek was the only real friend he'd ever had in his life.

-----

Rodney trudged back home, fully intending to be alone and feeling sorry for himself for the rest of the night, or until John made it back from wherever the hell he was, but when he went to open the door, his palm came off the doorknob sticky with drying blood. He pushed inside quickly. "John?" he shouted, starting down the hall when he wasn't to be found in the kitchen or the living room.

He found him leaning over the bathroom sink; blood was swirling down the drain, and the water ran pink and then clear as the last of it disappeared. John's lip was split open and still bleeding, and he could already see the beginnings of a bruise spreading across his cheek. "Jesus," he whispered. "What happened? Are you okay?"

John pushed off of the sink, and it took visible effort for him to gain his balance and his composure, which alarmed Rodney more than anything. "I'm fine," John said, glancing up at him and then quickly away; not that it helped, Rodney had already seen the damage.

"You're bleeding," Rodney said, unnecessarily, and he felt a little sick. Blood didn't faze him much these days, not with his job, but the blood wasn't usually John's. He reached out instinctively, but paused with his hand mid-air, afraid to touch.

"It's nothing," John told him, reaching up and pushing Rodney's hand gently back down. He even tried to smile. It was a pathetic attempt; the right side of his face looked puffy and sore, and his lower lip had a line of bright red running through it. Rodney had never been really hurt before, not back when he'd been passing his days in an ivory tower, not before that one time where he died, and he winced just looking at him.

"You look awful," Rodney snapped. "I thought we were...you know, undead. I thought we couldn't be hurt."

John laughed, but that looked painful too. "No," he said. "We can be hurt like anyone, we just can't die twice."

"What happened?" Rodney asked again, and his voice was strangely calm now, but he realized kind of distantly that he'd never been this angry. He'd gladly take the soul of whoever had done this.

"Haven't you ever been in a fight before?" John asked him. His eyes were wide and kind of disbelieving, like coming home in one piece every night would be the real insanity.

"John," Rodney said. His voice was still strangely eerily calm, and oddly commanding.

John seemed to sense that Rodney wasn't in a mood to be fucked around with, and he glanced away again. "The job didn't go as planned," he said. "It's not a big deal, Rodney, this will all be gone by tomorrow. We can get hurt, but we heal fast."

Rodney wondered how many other times John had been hurt that he could predict how long it would take to heal. "Did that bastard Kolya do this?" Rodney asked.

John placed a finger against his split lip in distraction, pressing at it like he might be able to hold it closed. "I can take care of myself," he said.

"That isn't an answer," Rodney snapped.

"It's all you need to know," John told him, before pressing up against him to slip sideways out the door. The contact left Rodney a little dizzy and nauseous from the coppery scent of his blood, even though he knew he should really be used to it by now.

His hands got a little more covered in it every single day.

-----

The next morning, as John had predicted, his split lip was no longer visible. He could still see faint bruising across his cheek, a strange yellow-tinged glow, and he was favoring his left side. Rodney trapped John against the counter in irritation when he tried to act like it was just any other morning, and started pulling at his shirt.

"It's a little early to be getting frisky, don't you think?" John asked, and anyone else might think he sounded amused, but Rodney could hear the tension he was trying to hide.

Once he'd wrestled John's shirt high enough he could see why. There were three small holes beneath John's ribs on his side. "You idiot," Rodney shouted. "You were fucking _shot_ and you didn't tell me?"

John shrugged with a self-depreciating smile. "It's that whole undead thing again. A 9 mm feels like a Beebe gun. It's not worth worrying over."

"I want you to stay away from this guy," Rodney told him vehemently, and he was still holding John at his hips, pressing him against the counter. He'd never pushed someone like this before; had never cared enough to.

"Kolya didn't do this," John said, though Rodney noted absently that John had never denied Kolya was responsible for his split lip. "He wouldn't. He wants me."

"That's what worries me," Rodney told him.

"Everything worries you," John said, going for glib, before effortlessly twisting out of his grip. "Be fearless, Rodney, there's no reason left not to be."

Rodney remembered the picture; John's easy grin in the Vietnam sun. He had a feeling John had always been fearless, and that being dead had nothing whatsoever to do with it. "You said we can still be hurt," Rodney said quietly. "That's reason enough for me."

He was pissed off at John for having so little regard for his own well-being, but tried to compose himself before he gave anything more away. It was just his luck that he'd finally found someone to care about and that someone didn't care about himself.

-----

Jack mostly let Rodney get away with not having a baby-sitter anymore, but today he must have noticed Rodney's mood and the way John had grabbed his post-it and hightailed it out of the restaurant as quick as he could manage, because he said just as Rodney was about leave, "Why don't you take Ronon with you?"

Ronon made some kind of protest through the piece of toast he'd just shoved in his mouth, but Jack just flashed him a grin. Jack grinned a little the way John did, in that it never meant what it seemed to. "You'd love to? Great. Have fun then, kids. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Daniel snorted. "And that rules out what, exactly?"

Jack glanced at him. "I don't like knitting. I wouldn't knit," he said.

Daniel rolled his eyes and slouched further in the booth. Rodney, used to these kinds of things by now, just turned on his heel and started out the door. Ronon joined him a moment later, stuffing the rest of his toast into his pockets for reasons known only to him.

They were silent for awhile. Ronon was kind of like that, couldn't be bothered to talk unless you got him started. And getting him started was rarely a good idea, but Rodney was on edge already, and the silence got to him quickly. "You've known John awhile, right?" he asked.

"Going on forty years," Ronon said nonchalantly.

"Right," Rodney said, a little startled, because sometimes he forgot that these people died before he was born. "Is he...I mean, does he get hurt a lot?"

"What's a lot?" Ronon asked, pulling out a piece of bread crust from his pocket to chew on.

"You need me to define 'a lot'?" Rodney snapped. "A lot is _a lot_."

Ronon shrugs. "He gets hurt sometimes. Not usually too badly. He can take care of himself."

"Yeah," Rodney said petulantly. "So he likes to claim."

Ronon threw him a mischievous grin, which Rodney was a little wary about. "You like him," he said, and then laughed. "Never gonna happen, McKay."

Rodney glared at him, stopping in his tracks and crossing his arms. "What's that supposed to mean? You think he's out of my league?" he snapped.

Ronon paused. "I _know_ he is, but that's not what I'm talking about." Ronon tilted his head, watching him carefully. "It's just that you blew it. You waited too long to make a move. He thinks you're friends now. Roomies. Buddies."

"I get it," Rodney interrupted. "But we're guys. Guys don't work like that. We'll do anything for the possibility of sex."

"Whatever you say," Ronon told him, as he started off again. "John ain't that kind of guy, though. You think he has trouble getting laid? Even dead? Friendships are harder to come by."

Rodney caught up to him again, glaring all the while. "What are you trying to say? You think I'd have trouble getting laid?"

"That's not what I meant," Ronon said. "You're hot in that intellectual geeky way, if I were into guys, I'd fuck you."

Rodney was caught between being flattered and horrified. "Uh...thanks?"

"No problem," Ronon said. "Were you heading somewhere with this? Or can we be done talking now?"

"Oh, we're just getting started," Rodney snapped. "Have you ever heard of someone named Kolya?"

Ronon paused, and shot him a shifty glance. "Now where did you hear that name?"

"From John," Rodney said. "He's doing jobs for him, whatever the hell that means."

Ronon sighed. "Fuck," he said.

Rodney glared. "You know something. What do you know?"

"That Kolya is bad news," Ronon said, before shedding the worry like he'd never been concerned at all. "But John can--"

"Take care of himself," Rodney finished irritably. "Yeah, and I guess that's why he came home last night with his face smashed in and three bullet holes in his chest?"

Ronon's gaze darkened and he stiffened a little. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing," Ronon said.

"I'm not," Rodney said simply. "I think he's got issues. Big huge issues."

"It's hard to be dead and well-adjusted," Ronon said with a shrug.

Rodney admitted, if only to himself, that he made a good point. "If he's so damn good at taking care of himself," Rodney snapped, "why doesn't he just tell this Kolya to go fuck himself? Why does he keep working for him if he's going to get hurt?"

"Kolya is the type to cause trouble if he doesn't get what he wants, and John has a very strict code regarding the living," Ronon said. "He only touches them to take their soul, and does the jobs he needs to do to get by; otherwise, he's completely non-interference." Ronon moved his coat aside, and Rodney caught sight of a rather large gun strapped to his belt before the coat fell back into place. "I don't have any such code myself."

Ronon grabbed the next guy that walked across them by the front of his t-shirt, and pulled him into an ally. He pushed him up against the wall and placed the sharp edge of a knife blade against the terrified man's throat; Rodney hadn't even seen him reach for it. "Gimme your wallet," Ronon said, his voice was deep and threatening, and Rodney nearly scrambled to find his own.

The man quickly handed it to Ronon and Ronon took it, before pushing the man back towards the street.

Rodney blinked as the man went running off shouting for help, and Ronon grabbed him by the arm and started walking in the opposite direction. "Are you supposed to mug people?" Rodney asked incredulously.

Ronon shrugged, and flipped through the wallet, counting money. "Probably not," he said, before turning to Rodney, looking a little creepily pleased with himself. "Now, are you ready to go grab some souls?"

----

John sauntered into O'Malley's; flopping into the seat beside Daniel and grinning widely at Jack's bent head. Jack didn't look up as he peeled of John's post-it, handing it wordless to him before going back to whatever he'd been doing when John walked in. Daniel was frowning at John, biting his bottom lip and John rolled his eyes. "What?"

"I didn't say anything," Daniel answered with a wide-eyed innocent look.

John narrowed his own eyes. "You're staring."

"He's probably staring at the remnants of the big ass bruise on your pretty little face," Jack mumbled without looking up.

"It's nothing," John said quickly, grinning as Janet came over to take his order.

After she left Daniel took a sip of his coffee, turning in the booth; arm over the back of the seat to better see John. "It doesn't look like nothing; it looks like someone used you for a punching bag."

"This something I should be worried about?" Jack asked, finally looking up to pin John with an assessing look.

"I told you, it's nothing—I can take care of myself."

"Newbie's worried about you," Jack said, leaning back in his seat, tapping out an annoying rhythm on the table with his pen.

"I don't need a lecture," John snapped, suddenly not all that hungry anymore.

"Who's lecturing?" Jack grinned charmingly. Turning to Daniel he asked, "Am I lecturing?"

Daniel shook his head, "No—I've been on the receiving end many times—this isn't lecturing." He smirked at Jack.

John rolled his eyes, used to Jack and Daniel by now. "I'm fine, guys—really."

Jack nodded, shifting to lean his elbows on the table. "You'd tell me if you weren't though, right?"

"Of course," John replied, too quickly, and Jack scowled.

"You enjoy making my life miserable, don't you?"

John threw Jack a cocky smirk. "It is, by far, my only joy in death."

Jack snorted before stealing Daniel's coffee, grimacing at the sweetness.

----

Rodney watched as Ronon's reap disappeared into the cheesiest looking strip club he'd ever seen. "Huh," he said. "I didn't expect that."

Ronon shrugged, turning away from where the lights had faded and started to walk away. With a final stunned blink Rodney followed. "How long before your reap?"

Rodney glanced at his post-it again, sighing. "Not for another four hours."

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" Ronon asked.

Rodney shrugged. "Didn't feel like going in today. I called in sick." The truth was, after dealing with—or rather trying to deal with—John and his god damned subterfuge, Rodney was fucking exhausted. "I'll probably go home and sleep for a few hours."

Glancing at Rodney from the corner of his eyes Ronon grunted, "I guess you can hang out with me today."

"That's—uh," Rodney stuttered. "I'm kind of tired." And the idea of spending the day with Ronon after he'd just mugged a man at knife point kind of terrified him.

Slinging an arm around Rodney's shoulder, Ronon bared his teeth in another startling grin. "It'll be fun." Rodney swallowed audibly but let Ronon pull him along.

----

Jack grinned as a man with dark hair and bright blue eyes slid into the seat across from him. "Been a long time," he said.

Nodding, Kowalski grinned. "That it has, Jack. How've you been?"

"Oh, you know, can't complain." Waving Janet over, he ordered another coffee, Kowalski doing the same. "Colorado beat New York last night so it's all good," he shrugged.

Huffing out a laugh, Kowalski took a drink of his coffee, sitting the cup back on the table carefully before looking Jack in the eye. "You sure about this, Jack?"

Jack nodded, sticking his finger into his coffee before removing it and shaking his hand, rubbing it on his pant leg and leaning on his elbows to stare at Kowalski. "Did you find it?"

"Not too sure you're going to be happy with what you find…"

"Kowalski," Jack snapped impatiently. "Yes or no?"

Kowalski paused for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling a folded piece of paper out, lying on the table, his hand covering it. "You're the one that always told me you can't go back." He pushed the paper across the table towards Jack. Swallowing the last of his coffee, he threw a couple dollars on the table and stood with a sad smile. "As hard as it might be--not knowing, Jack," Kowalski said quietly, "sometimes knowing is worse."

Jack didn't look up as Kowalski left, his eyes still on the folded white paper in front of him. His hands shook as he picked it up, mouth in a firm, thin line; eyes hardened from years of pain. Sucking in a deep breath, he unfolded the paper.

----

Daniel smiled brightly at his assistant, who had, much to Daniel's chagrin, taken it upon herself to 'put some meat on his bones'. She deposited another batch of cookies onto his desk with a motherly pat to his shoulder, tutting about how thin he was getting, how peaky—death warmed over she said. He needed rest, needed good home cooked meals and a nice wife to give him lots of beautiful little babies she said.

She was sixty five and had told Daniel on numerous occasions about her very single granddaughter. Daniel thanked her, accepting the cookies and carefully refusing the granddaughter before turning back to his work. Catherine left him alone, but not before telling him he needed to take his nose out of his books once in a while.

Laughing quietly to himself, Daniel snagged a cookie, glanced at the clock and returned to his reading. He still had time before he needed to do his reap.

----

Rodney flinched again as the bullet hit its mark, dead center. Ronon's smile was growing with each clip he emptied into the paper target and Rodney wondered why exactly he had let himself be dragged along to the firing range when all he really felt like doing was curling up with Thales on the couch and watching bad Sci-Fi...or maybe some bad porno. He didn't really care at this point. He was getting a headache, even with the protective earphones and the longer he stood beside Ronon, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, the more his thoughts began to jumble together.

Then Ronon shoved a gun into his hand, pulling the earphones from his own head before removing Rodney's. After a very quick lesson on what to do and what not to do, Ronon pushed Rodney into position in front of the firing window, a new, perfectly pristine paper target waiting for Rodney to begin shooting.

The first shot went wild, hitting the back wall and not even nicking the paper and Rodney growled to himself because honestly killing paper people was not his idea of fun. But just as he was about to tell Ronon he was leaving, that he didn't want to do this anymore, John's bloodied and bruised face popped into his head and an imaginary vision of the people that did it to him suddenly is superimposed over the blank face of the paper target.

He still wasn't shooting very well but at least this time he was managing to hit the target and he had to admit that picturing the bastards that shot John in front of him as he emptied clip after clip, letting Ronon show him how to reload, he was starting to feel a little better. And if the thought that perhaps he'd get the chance to use his newly learned shooting skills on said bastards was in the back of his mind as he watched the paper explode on impact, well—he was actually okay with that.

----

John's reap took him to a dingy little bar where the beer was cheap and the women were cheaper. H. O'Brian was three sheets to the wind by the time John got there and he didn't even need to think up an excuse to take the guy's soul. 'Can I buy you a drink?' O'Brian's slurred voice mumbling he 'ain't no queer' has John patting the man's arm, apologizing and moving to one of the corner tables to sit back and wait.

Twenty minutes later and another slob at the other end of the bar, just as piss loaded drunk as O'Brian decided he's none to pleased about getting cut off and whipped out a gun, aiming for the bartender. John watched the graveling, standing on the bar beside the slob's gun hand; watched as it shoved him, throwing the guy off balance so that when he fired, he fired at O'Brian. He died instantly--head shots tended to have that effect and then he was sitting beside John, staring at his own lifeless body bleeding all over the beer coated bar floor.

"Fuck me," O'Brian muttered and John snorted, clapping him on the shoulder.

"It's a little too late for that now." He smirked, standing and tilting his head towards the door. "Your ride is waiting."

----

After Daniel's reap he headed over to Jack's place. There was another hockey game on tonight and though he really didn't enjoy the sport, he'd been a little worried about Jack lately.

When he walked into the house unannounced to find Jack sitting silently at his kitchen table, his head bent over a shoebox filled with Daniel wasn't sure what, that worry ratcheted up a notch. "Jack?"

In the thirty years Daniel had known Jack he had never once managed to startle the man, but Jack's head snapped up at Daniel's voice, his eyes widening before his mouth turned down, and his eyes went dark. "Daniel--don't you know how to knock?"

"Considering I haven't knocked in over twenty eight years, I didn't think it was necessary." Daniel slid into the chair at the opposite end of the table, folding his hands in front of him. "What's up?"

Jack shoved everything he had been looking at back into the box, replacing it's cover and scowling a little before picking it up and walking into the side room he used as a sort of office. Daniel had only managed to catch a glimpse of a faded and torn old photograph before it disappeared into the box with the rest of Jack's things.

When Jack came back out of the room a couple of minutes later he was all smiles, clapping his hands together, and tilting his head towards the kitchen. "Half hour till game time--feel like pizza? We can have a couple beers while we wait for it to get here."

Daniel frowned. "Jack--what's going on with you?"

"What?" Jack asked in mock innocence. "I'm looking forward to the game and I haven't eaten dinner yet. Something wrong with me wanting a pizza?"

Not sure what exactly was going on with Jack and knowing how pushing tended to just make him clam up even more, Daniel sighed and nodded saying, "Pizza sounds great, but I don't want any of that crap you call beer."

Jack smiled brightly, tossing Daniel the cordless phone and telling him to order--no anchovies--before disappearing into the kitchen to grab their drinks.

----

When Rodney got home his arm hurt, but he couldn't stop the manic smile on his face as he kicked off his shoes and hung up his coat. He never really had an opinion on guns when he was alive--he couldn't even recall having ever held one in his hands before--but after this afternoon...

Ronon told him that just because they were dead didn't mean they couldn't protect themselves, didn't mean that they didn't have just as much right as the living to do whatever it took to survive life in whatever form life may take. Rodney wasn't sure if he agreed with everything that Ronon had told him today but he did agree with one thing. When Ronon had said he thought maybe Rodney should look into getting his own gun--just in case, Rodney had nodded, had asked Ronon to help him get one.

He didn't think John would approve, especially if what Ronon had told him about John was true. But Rodney figured that what John didn't know wouldn't hurt him and might in fact save him if he insisted on working for Kolya.

John wasn't home yet and Rodney hadn't seen him all day. He patted Thales on the head as he walked into the kitchen, pulling down various items and pots and pans, whistling quietly to himself as he flitted around the kitchen. John had cooked for him almost every night that he was home before Rodney, and after releasing a few of his frustrations and worries at the firing range today, Rodney was in a good mood and had decided he'd make his specialty for John.

Glancing at the clock he wondered when John would come home.

----

Jack snorted softly as he glanced over at Daniel, sound asleep, mouth hanging open, head twisted uncomfortably. Flicking off the TV set he took a step closer, shaking him from sleep and pointing him down the hall towards the guestroom. Jack figured he should just call it Daniel's room since he spent so much time there—either that or stop forcing Daniel into watching hockey so he'd stop falling asleep on his couch.

Leaving Daniel huddled under the comforter, Jack walked down the hall towards his office, groaning as he slid into the leather office chair, head bending over his desk. Sliding the fingers of one hand into his short hair, he flipped the lid off the shoebox sitting on his desk with the other.

Gently pulling a frayed and yellowed photograph from the box, Jack ran a finger carefully over the smiling faces. "God, I miss you," he whispered quietly before replacing the photo in its box and carefully fitting the lid on it once more.

Opening the drawer beside him he pulled out his newest list of names, setting about writing the post-its for the next morning. Slipping them into his date book he shut off the light in his office and headed for his own room, stifling a yawn as he went.

----

When John showed up, Rodney had the table set and dinner ready. He smiled brightly, ushering John towards the dining room, laughing softly at John's look of surprise. "What's all this?"

Rodney blushed slightly, clearing his throat and waving his hand dismissively. "I was bored…and hungry—seemed like a good idea to make dinner."

John smirked, sitting in the seat opposite Rodney, thanking him when he poured a glass of wine. "I didn't know you could cook."

Rodney leered suggestively. "There's a lot I can do you don't know about...yet."

Coughing on the wine he'd just inhaled, John blushed, eyes dropping to the table. "So what are we having?"

"My world famous lasagna," Rodney said his back to John as he pulled the warming pasta from the oven.

"World famous huh?" John asked with amusement.

"Scoff now," Rodney answered, "you'll be singing a different tune once you taste it."

John snorted, but smiled when Rodney placed a plate in front of him. Waiting until Rodney got his own and had sat down again, John eyed the lasagna. "It smells great."

"Well, dig in," Rodney said, gesturing at John's plate while raising his own fork to his mouth.

John had assumed that Rodney's lasagna would be edible, that it might even taste alright but he hadn't for one second expected the explosion on his taste buds. His eyes closed as he moaned around his mouthful of lasagna, swallowing regretfully before opening his eyes and staring at Rodney in stunned awe. "You bastard!" John said.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh my God, Rodney!" John shoveled another forkful into his mouth. Talking around the pasta John continued, "You were holding out on me!"

Rodney raised an eyebrow. "So...you like it?"

"Marry me!" John said.

After dinner was done, John helped Rodney do the dishes and clean up. Rodney was placing the last plate into the cupboard when he asked, "Feel like watching a movie tonight?"

John sighed. "I'd love to--but I have to head out."

Rodney frowned. "Now?"

"Late pick up," John shrugged.

"For Kolya?" Rodney practically spat the name.

John's mouth quirked upwards. "You're cute when you're worried." He winked, tossing the dishcloth onto the counter.

"John..."

"Rodney--we had a really nice meal together, great conversation...can we not ruin it by arguing over Kolya _again_?"

Narrowing his eyes, Rodney took a step closer to John, trapping him against the counter. "You have to stop this, John. It's too dangerous."

John tilted his head. "I thought we already discussed this," he smirked. "We're dead, Rodney--he can't kill me again."

"That doesn't mean he can't hurt you." Rodney's voice was a little hoarse, his heart pounding. He really didn't want to wake up in the morning to find John bloodied and bruised again--or worse, to find John hadn't come back at all.

"I'll be fine," John said quietly.

Rodney wasn't sure if it was the way John said it, or if it was the way his eyes seemed to cloud over with resignation but before he could over think it, he grabbed John by the front of his shirt, pulling him closer until their lips met. The kiss was soft and gentle but when Rodney pulled back he was panting, his knees feeling a little wobbly. If the look on John's face was any indication he was feeling the same way.

And then he had to go and ruin the moment. "Rodney..." John smiled, a smile that finally reached his eyes as he leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to Rodney's mouth before leaning his forehead against Rodney's. Sighing, John raised a hand, cupping Rodney's cheek, his thumb tracing Rodney's bottom lip.

Rodney closed his eyes. "You're still going to go, aren't you?"

John's silence was answer enough. Rodney took a step back, his eyes full of hurt and worry. John's throat felt tight. "I'll be back as soon as I can--I promise."

Nodding, Rodney folded his arms protectively over his chest, not able to say anything else. John stepped closer, hand on Rodney's chin, tilting his head up to capture his lips once more before slipping past Rodney and out the door.

----

Rodney took a deep breath, telling himself that John would be fine as he walked towards his bedroom. He had a feeling he probably wasn't going to get much sleep tonight, worrying about John, so he might as well get some work done.

The high-pitched scream that came out of Rodney's throat when he walked into his room had Thales dashing into the living room and left Ronon wincing. "What the fuck are you trying to do, scare me to death!" Rodney screeched.

Ronon smirked. "You're already dead, McKay." Shrugging, Ronon walked past him into the living room. "Besides, I didn't think you'd appreciate me interrupting your romantic dinner," he smirked, "bringing you your gun."

"You got it?" Rodney asked, ignoring Ronon's smirk. "That was fast."

Shrugging again, and wandering into the kitchen he said, "I know a guy." Rodney watched as Ronon headed straight for the fridge, opening the door and pulling out the leftover lasagna. "The smell of this was driving me crazy."

"So where is it?" Rodney asked impatiently.

Fishing one hand under his trench coat and around to his back, Ronon drew out a gun, holding it out to Rodney without tearing his eyes from where he was heaping more and more lasagna onto his plate. Rodney took the gun gingerly, getting used to the weight of it, turning it over in his hand.

He looked up when he heard Ronon growling. "Fuck, McKay--" He was shoveling in large forkfuls of the pasta, eyes closed in delight.

Rodney snorted and rolled his eyes. "I'm not marrying you."

Ronon smirked. "Keep cooking for Shep like this and he'll be bending you over the table in no time." Rodney figured he was probably kidding but he still found himself blushing, his cock twitching at the very thought.

Clearing his throat and shaking his head Rodney forced himself back to the situation at hand. "You didn't steal this did you?"

"Do you care?"

"If it gets me thrown into prison for the rest of eternity, then yeah," Rodney huffed with annoyance.

"It's not stolen," Ronon answered with his mouth still full. "You going to tell Shep about it?"

Rodney looked up to see Ronon giving him an assessing stare. Shrugging, Rodney checked to see if the gun was loaded, just like Ronon had taught him. "No need to worry him."

"Worry nothing--he's gonna be _pissed_ when he finds out."

"Then I guess he better not find out," Rodney snapped, glowering at Ronon.

Ronon lifted an eyebrow as if to say 'are you honestly threatening _me_?' Rodney glared harder, pointing towards the food. "If you breathe a word to John about this, then you'll never get another scrap of food from this apartment."

Smirking, Ronon shrugged, "I'm not going to say anything, but Shep isn't stupid."

"Neither am I," Rodney said quietly. "Where are the extra clips?"

Leaning against the counter, Ronon reached into the pocket of his coat, tossing Rodney two full clips. "Let me know when you need more."

----

Kolya isn't there when John arrives at the warehouse and he curses quietly to himself as he hurries back to the apartment. He hadn't wanted to leave--would have much rathered staying there with Rodney...finishing what they started. But he also knew just how crazy Kolya could get and it was just easier to agree to the job, telling himself that it was only a couple months until the tourist season picked up again and he wouldn't have to deal with Kolya anymore.

Military training had taught him well as he quietly snuck back into the apartment, wanting to surprise Rodney. He silently padded towards Rodney's door, a smile spreading on his face as he thought about the man waiting for him behind it. Turning the knob carefully, he pushed open the door, a cheeky quip ready to fall from his mouth, something like 'honey I'm home' just to see Rodney turn red in annoyance, or flush in endearing embarrassment.

The sight inside Rodney's room though, had the quip dying on his lips, replaced with an angry shout. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!"

Rodney's head shot up at the sound of John's voice, eyes wide. "What are you doing home?"

John stalked towards him, reaching out with a fast hand and snatching the gun from Rodney's slack fingers, popping the clip and sliding it into his back pocket before Rodney even had a chance to blink. "Where did you get a fucking gun?" he growled.

Shock at John's sudden reappearance beginning to wear off, Rodney stood, his eyes narrowed. "Give it back."

"Are you out of your fucking mind, Rodney!" John shouted. He held out the gun like an accusation. "Why do you have this?"

Rodney reached for it, growling in frustration when John pulled it back out of reach. "I don't see how it's any of your business," Rodney said angrily. "If I want a gun for protection that's my fucking choice!"

"You're dead, Rodney!" John yelled, waving his empty hand in exasperation. "How many god damned times do you need to hear that before you just fucking accept it? You don't need protection! You _cannot_ die again!"

"Ronon carries a gun!"

Rodney wished he took the words back as soon as he said them because John's eyes glinted dangerously in the light as he asked, "Did Ronon get you this?"

"Despite the way you're acting," Rodney said quickly, "I am a big boy, John, who can take care of himself. If I want a fucking gun, I can get a gun. Ronon has nothing to do with this."

John snorted. "Yeah, right."

"You don't think I could get a gun if I wanted one?" Rodney asked indignantly.

"That's not the point, Rodney," John said wearily. "I don't want this in the apartment."

"It's my gun--"

"It's my apartment!" John shouted again, eyes flashing as his knuckles whitened around the gun in his hand. Rodney looked like he'd been slapped and John had a moment of painful regret because he didn't want to hurt Rodney.

Rodney swallowed. "Funny--I kind of thought it was _our_ apartment." It pissed him off that his voice wavered when he spoke, but the truth was he expected John to be angry, after all Ronon had told him, hadn't he? But he hadn't expected John to be this pissed, and certainly didn't expect him to be hurtful--no matter how unintentional in the heat of the moment.

"Rodney..." John closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. When he opened them again, he looked right into Rodney's eyes. "This is non-negotiable--no guns in this apartment, period." Not wanting to chance the argument escalating to the point of them saying anything else hurtful, anything else he might regret, he turned on his heel and walked quickly from Rodney's room, the gun still in his hand, Rodney still standing, shocked and hurt in the middle of his bedroom.

----

John paced the floor of his bedroom, throwing angry glances at the unloaded gun sitting on his dresser. He could still feel the clip in his back pocket, and was disturbed by just how right it had felt when he'd handled the gun, popping the clip so Rodney didn't fucking shoot himself in the foot. What the fuck was he thinking!

He ran his hands through his hair, ears straining for any sounds of movement in the apartment. He was so angry at Rodney right now he could practically hear the blood rushing in his ears and the fact was he wasn't sure that he was entirely justified in what he said. Yes, he believed in non-interference with the living, yes he fucking hated guns, yes they couldn't god damn well die again but the idea of Rodney coming home late from the lab one night, getting jumped by a couple of thugs, of them shooting or stabbing him, hurting him--no matter how quickly Rodney would heal--had John's stomach turning. And he didn't honestly think Rodney would kill anyone...so was it really that wrong for him to have the gun as a form of protection?

Ronon had tried to drill it into John's head on numerous occasions that just because they were dead didn't mean they didn't have rights, didn't mean that when they got shot or stabbed, or beat up that it didn't fucking hurt. That carrying a gun to deter those who had no problems hurting an innocent passerby was not the huge fucking moral dilemma John seemed to like to make it out to be. Was Ronon right?

Staring at the gun, John's heart started to beat faster and his palms began to sweat as the anger began bubbling to the surface again. No, Ronon wasn't right. Rodney having a gun was just wrong on too many fucking levels that John couldn't even wrap his head around them all. Rodney could be pissed with John all he wanted, he'd made up his mind.

Tossing the clip onto the dresser, John sat on the side of the bed, snorting quietly to himself, burying his hands in his hair, resting his elbows on his knees. Who was he kidding? Rodney was a stubborn bastard, if he wanted a gun John wasn't going to be able to stop him from getting another one. And John had no doubts that Ronon was the one that got the gun for Rodney in the first place, no matter how much Rodney protested that he hadn't. As much as John hated the idea of Rodney carrying a gun, of Rodney _using_ a gun he knew he wouldn't be able to stop him. But he also knew he was just as stubborn as Rodney and he had no intentions of making it easy on him. If he wanted another gun, fine--but John would be damned if he just sat back and kept his mouth shut about the whole thing.

Stripping down to his boxers he slid under the covers, smiling grimly in the darkness and not at all thinking about what might have been lost tonight.

-----

It was still there when he woke up.

John had a routine, one he'd stuck to for over forty years and hadn't been all that dissimilar when he'd been alive. He would wake up, go running, come back to shower and eat and start the day. He felt bruised and sore today in places that couldn't be seen, and slept an extra hour instead. The next time he got up he stood and lifted the gun up off his dresser.

He stared at it for a moment, and touching it was electric, filled with sense memory and flashbacks and things that should have been forgotten long before now. The metal was cool and familiar, because holding a gun was like riding a fucking bike, and he knew he'd never have to practice again. He'd be a crack shot the rest of this not-life.

He bit his lip as he looked down at it, it had a nice weight to it, and he wrapped his fingers around and through it; it was a little like being reunited with an old lover, a little like coming home, and if he hadn't been frightened before, that would have done it. He ran his hand up along the side, and let the memories have their hold, if just for a minute.

Then he took it apart, piece-by-piece, and threw it away.

-----

Daniel woke up in Jack's guest room with a post-it stuck to his forehead and winced. The undead didn't get hangovers, allegedly, but Daniel had always been susceptible to bad beer.

Jack was gone when he headed out into the living room, but the shoebox was there, on the coffee table, in the middle of the room. Daniel rocked back carefully on his heels and glanced around, before checking his post-it to see what time he had to make for his reap.

Only it wasn't a name, just said, "_don't even think about it_" in Jack's hurried scrawl.

Daniel snorted, stuck the post-it to the door, and slipped outside without looking back.

-----

John was sitting on the kitchen counter when Rodney wandered out of his room, and he watched him warily. John didn't yell anymore, though, didn't say a thing. He wouldn't even look at him.

Rodney sighed and reached for the coffee pot, pouring the dregs into his cup before downing them with a wince. He shot John a sideways glance. "I'm thinking I'll get a Glock," he said.

"I'm thinking you've seen too many action movies," John said flatly, before hopping off the counter. "We're going to be late."

"I don't care," Rodney said, crossing his arms. "I'm not finished."

John finally turned and looked at him. "Anytime I find a gun in this apartment, I'm getting rid of it. That's just how it is. You're so set on this? Then I suggest you find yourself another place."

Rodney's eyes widened. "Are you serious?" he asked. "You'd kick me out over this?"

"Never," John said, almost gently. "I'm just going to kick the guns out, as far as I can get them, and that's not going to change."

John didn't seem to get how ridiculous it was, asking Rodney to choose between him and a gun. He was only getting a gun to protect him. Rodney shoved past him, and they didn't talk much on the way to O'Malley's.

-----

Jack was distracted today, and Daniel was beside him, biting his lip and looking generally concerned. John wondered what was wrong, but never asked, as he took advantage of Jack's distraction to take his post-it and bolt without conversation. He wasn't surprised when Ronon showed up beside him; he'd been counting on it.

"I'm guessing you know," Ronon said. "You've got that angry look in your eyes."

"You should mind your own business," John snapped, "instead of trying to warp Rodney into your twisted point of view."

Ronon took this with a shrug. "I'm just trying to protect him. And you."

"_I'm_ trying to protect him," John said. "He used to be a goddamn scientist, still is, for all intents and purposes, and scientists don't generally carry around guns, especially not the dead ones."

"And why don't you?" Ronon asked. "Major?"

"Fuck you," John snapped.

"You're brining a world of trouble down on yourself with Kolya," Ronon said.

"How did you--never mind, Rodney told you. Just stay out of it, Ronon." John shoved his hands in his pockets, and kept walking, but Ronon wasn't letting him get even one step ahead.

"If you don't want a gun, that's your business," Ronon said. "I don't know what happened to you, and I'll never ask, but if McKay wants one, then maybe you should take your own advice and stay the hell out of it."

John winced. Ronon had a way of making everything look simple, but John knew from experience that nothing ever was. "Rodney isn't going to find trouble if he doesn't go looking for it," he said. "Reapers can slip beneath the radar if they're trying to."

"Like you're trying to?" Ronon asked. "I promised you what would happen if you did this again."

"Ronon--"

"I said I'd kill Kolya if he touched you again, and I meant it." Ronon's eyes were hard. "For someone that likes to pretend they're staying under the radar, you seem to have a habit for stirring up trouble. I just can't figure out whether or not that's what you want."

"Right," John said, "because this what I want."

Ronon just watched him. "If McKay asks me again, I'll get him another gun."

"You do what you have to," John said, shoving past him, "and I'll do the same."

-----

Rodney turned circles in his desk chair. Things hadn't actually gone as planned last night. He'd thought, for a moment there, that he and John might have been reaching some new level, some new brand of closeness that Rodney had never managed with anyone else.

But it seemed, even dead, Rodney's love life was disastrous.

John's reaction to that gun seemed far too strong for the circumstances. Rodney knew some people hated guns, couldn't bear to be near them, but Rodney knew that John had been a Major in the Air Force when he'd been alive, and from the way John had deftly unloaded the weapon the moment he took it from Rodney's hands suggested that he had more than a passing familiarity with them.

From what he'd found out about John's death, he'd died in a helicopter crash, but if his body had never been recovered, then who knew? He could have been killed in a gunfight if he'd survived the crash, only that didn't seem to fit either.

John had come home just the other day with three bullets in him, and hadn't batted an eye, hadn't seemed to care at all about getting shot. Rodney laid his head down on his desk and closed his eyes. He had three hours until he had to go watch some other poor sap die, and he wished, really wished, for the first time since he'd found out he was dead, that he'd gotten his lights too, instead of this.

-----

"You weren't where you were supposed to be."

John didn't bother looking both ways before crossing the street. He pushed on his sunglasses with one hand as he held his cell phone with the other. "Kolya," he said. "Nice to hear from you. Funny, though, because I thought it was the other way around. You didn't show, and I don't wait around for anyone."

"You'd better learn to wait for me," Kolya said, his gravely tones edging a little deeper into something like anger. John had only seen Kolya really angry the once, the same day Ronon made his vow to kill him if he tried something again.

"Can't teach an old dog new tricks, I'm afraid," John said. He watched a young girl walk out of a dress shop, and knew without asking who she was. He asked anyway, he rarely left things to chance. He muffled the phone, and called out, "Hey, are you Bennett's kid?"

She looked startled, before nodding. "Yes, you know my father?"

John paused a minute. "No, I don't, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else." She frowned at him, and he touched her arm as she walked by.

He returned to the phone call, and Kolya was talking mid-sentence. "I'm sorry," John said. "Could you say that again? I was ignoring you."

There was a short pause, which Kolya was probably using to count to ten. "I have another job for you, you don't want to let me down again."

"I don't know," he said. "It's kind of fun, actually. You turn such interesting colors."

There was the sound of screeching tires and a scream, and then A. Bennett was standing at the crosswalk, watching the aftermath of her death and looking confused.

"And you have such interesting things happen around you," Kolya said. "One has to wonder."

John went still, as people rushed past him towards the site of the wreck. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Death seems to follow you around, though it doesn't seem to faze you," Kolya said. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed. Just ask that poor girl."

John's head shot up, and he started searching the faces around him. His eyes passed over the dead girl and scanned the stopped cars, before moving to the other side of the road.

"You'd better be there tomorrow," Kolya said. "You won't like what happens if you're not."

John spotted someone standing in the shade of a building across the street and clicking a cell phone closed, at the same time he heard the dial tone replace Kolya's voice.

-----

Daniel knew that Jack was having some kind of crisis with his past. He'd watched it happen with others, Ronon, even, though never John. He didn't know how to help this time, not with Jack. He couldn't just bring Jack a pizza or watch hockey; that didn't really help. That was this life, not the other.

But asking Jack if he wanted to talk usually got the door slammed in his face, like now, for instance. "Open the fucking door, Jack," he snapped, leaning forward with his hands braced on either side.

Jack swung it back open and glared out at him. "Watch your language," he said reproachfully.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "A little bonus of being undead is I don't have to be polite anymore."

"Oh, but you are," Jack said, smiling almost sincerely. "You can't help yourself. I bet you don't even hang up on telemarketers."

"Some of them actually have interesting views on--"

Jack held up his hand to forestall further comment. "Jesus, Daniel, I was kidding."

Daniel leaned back and crossed his arms. "I want to know what's going on with you."

"Oh, is that all?" Jack asked. "Well, see, a long time ago, I was alive, and I had a family, and now I'm not and I don't. Does that about cover it?"

"You had a child," Daniel said, and as Jack's eyes immediately went shuttered, he knew he had it right. "A son, wasn't it?"

Jack's expression tightened and he took a step forward. "Damn it, Daniel, I told you not to look in that box!"

"I didn't," Daniel said, not giving up any of his ground. "I had a fifty-fifty shot. I guess I got lucky."

"I'm not doing this with you," Jack said. "I'm not doing this with anyone. We're grim reapers, Daniel, we've got no call to talk about our feelings."

"Still, it's got to be hard," Daniel said, glancing at the ground. "I know I can't relate, I didn't leave anyone behind, but--"

Daniel always knew how to get to him, Jack thought with a sigh. If he wouldn't talk about his feelings, Daniel started talking about his own, because he knew Jack would never slam the door in his face over that. "What about your parents?" he asked. "You talk about them and how great they were all the time."

"They died when I was eight," Daniel said, and shrugged. "And I wasn't all that great at making friends."

Jack frowned. "You never told me that."

"I figured you wouldn't want to know," Daniel said. "You seem big on avoidance."

Jack couldn't really argue that, but he still moved aside, and let Daniel walk in, and once Daniel had collapsed on the couch, Jack said, in passing, "Look in the damn box if you want to so badly."

Daniel just looked at his hands. "I'd rather you just tell me what's in it."

Jack came to a stop. He closed his eyes, let out a breath, and said, "They are."

-----

Rodney's phone rang while he was going through and correcting all of Felger's work. He picked it up distractedly, and snapped, "What?"

"Hey."

Rodney frowned at the familiar voice. "Ronon? What? How did you get this number?"

"Phonebook," Ronon said simply. "So John is pissed."

"What, is this girl talk?" Rodney asked. "You warned me he wouldn't like it, I didn't listen, end of story."

"I'm trying to help, McKay," Ronon said. "Kolya is bad news."

"I kind of figured that out when I saw John had been shot," Rodney said testily. "If he'd still been alive he would have been dead." Rodney frowned at his own words. "Or something."

"I just wanted to tell you that maybe you should back off," Ronon said. "You don't want to, I won't stop you, but it might help. I've got a feeling John doesn't need this right now."

"He doesn't need to be shot up, either," Rodney said. "I just want--"

"Call me," Ronon said.

"What?" Rodney asked.

"If it happens again, just call me, and I'll take care of it," Ronon said.

Rodney tapped his fingers along the armrest of his chair. "What do you mean by that?"

"Haven't you learned not to ask me those kind of questions yet?" Ronon asked, sounding amused.

Rodney winced. "Right. Should you...ah, be doing that, though? I mean, won't there be consequences?"

"Probably," Ronon said. "You've got my number?"

"Yeah, John gave it to me," he said.

"Good," Ronon said, and hung up.

Rodney set the phone aside. He wasn't entirely sure he was ready to give up the idea of keeping a gun, but Ronon, he was sure, was far more dangerous than anything he could get from an arms dealer.

He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair, and left his office. He had his reap to do, and this place was feeling a little too closed in for his tastes, anyway.

"Where are you going?" Felger asked him.

"Uh...I have to leave early," Rodney said. "My grandmother died."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Felger said, rising to his feet. "If there's anything--"

"No, I'm good," Rodney said. "Thanks anyway. I just have to go...you know, identify the body."

Felger looked mildly horrified. "Oh, okay. Why don't you go ahead and take the rest of the day?"

"Thanks," Rodney said.

-----

John had tried to catch up with Kolya, but by the time he made it through the crowd in the middle of the street, he was long gone. And Bennett kept following him around, asking stupid questions like "So I'm really dead?"

John nodded towards the body in the middle of the street. "That look alive to you?"

Bennett frowned. "You're kind of mean for an angel."

John shot her a crooked grin. "Oh, I'm not an angel," he said, before leading her away. "And it's time for you to go now."

"Where to?" she asked.

John pointed to the shining blue lights rising from the ground. He couldn't quite make it out, but it looked a little like a mall.

"Oh," she breathed, and took off running. John spun on his heel and started in the opposite direction.

Kolya had thrown him, in a way that no one else had since he'd been dead. John was careful, and he was good at this job. Taking souls was easier than shooting someone point blank, and he could do it smoothly, in a way that no one would remember him afterwards; and that wasn't easy, considering he drew a few glances everywhere he went.

Kolya, though, he hadn't been able to get him to forget.

The first time he'd met Acastus Kolya he'd been taking his tour. Once they landed, Kolya had complimented his flying, and said nothing about the sights.

He got a call the next day about a better job, more money, Kolya said, and John had laughed, because what the hell did he care what he was paid. Kolya kept trying, though, kept showing up at his office anyway; then he said, last chance, and John said, fuck you.

Kolya didn't like not getting what he wanted, so he had a pretty girl with bright red curls shoot him through the heart.

Needless to say, when John started flying tours again the next summer, Kolya was a bit suspicious.

-----

John walked the streets for an hour or maybe two, casting looks over his shoulder every third of a block. He didn't know how long Kolya had been following him, or how much he'd seen. John had laughingly said, "Ever heard of a bullet proof vest?" when Kolya had demanded to know why he wasn't dead, but there had been a whole lot of blood; the concrete of his hanger floor was still stained with it.

Kolya never really believed that story. Kolya was a whole hell of a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them, and John probably hadn't been as careful as he should have been. Kolya had backhanded him after he'd come back late from the last run he'd done for him, but he'd no longer been angry the next day, and John wondered if that was because it had gotten back to him that John had been shot three times by Cowen's men that same night.

Now Kolya thought he was some kind of angel of death, which wouldn't be half so worrying if it weren't kind of true.

John dropped down onto the bench at some bus stop and placed his head in his hands. Rodney didn't understand why would John would keep working for Kolya, and he knew less than half the story, and Ronon didn't understand why he wouldn't just kill the bastard for what he'd done.

But John had been at this for awhile now, and the best thing to do was to keep your head down.

Except he was starting to think maybe he'd been lying to himself all this time, because at the moment he didn't feel fearless at all. He was terrified, not of Kolya, but of himself, and what he was capable of.

He kept telling Rodney to let go, to move on, and after forty years, he hadn't even done it himself.

-----

When Rodney made it home after his reap, he wasn't surprised to find the apartment empty, he was getting used to that. Thales glared at him a little from where he perched on the back of the couch, a little upset himself about having been left there so long alone.

"You're a cat," Rodney told him. "You lay around all day and eat. You don't get to complain."

Thales rolled onto his back and stared at him, which Rodney chose to take as forgiveness. He sighed, petting Thales, before heading into his room. He toed off his shoes and dropped down on the bed.

That was when he saw the pieces of the gun sitting on the dresser.

"I may have overreacted."

Rodney spun around. John was leaning back against his wall, and Rodney decided that people were really going to have to stop sneaking into his room. "What?"

"You can have it back," John said, apparently by way of explanation. "Just try not to shoot yourself in the foot. I kind of lied about it feeling like a Beebe gun, it'll hurt like a bitch."

"John--" Rodney started.

"You're a genius, so I'm sure you can figure out how to put it back together," John continued.

"John," Rodney interrupted, again. "I don't care about the gun. I care about you, and you're scaring me."

John glanced away. "It's just that...this thing, it's not simple, it's not--"

"Nothing's been simple since I died," Rodney said.

John took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Nothing had been simple for him since he was born. "You asked me before how I died," John said.

Rodney watched him guiltily. "Yeah, about that, I kind of...looked it up."

"This isn't something you'd find on the Internet," John said softly, and then he stepped a little closer, and told Rodney about his last day alive, about turning off his radio and ignoring his orders to return, about going back anyway, because those were his friends in trouble down there, and they'd come back for him.

Rodney looked a little pale but he was reaching out, grabbing John by the wrist and pulling him in. John let him, and kept talking, like now that he'd started he didn't know how to stop.

He told him about the hit to his engine and the fall, but that he wasn't dead yet, not quite, he was bleeding too much to believe he'd live, but that he never once felt it. It was all very disconnected, and later he'd learn that was because his soul had been taken before he'd ever left for his flight.

"You were a hero," Rodney told him, looking at him with wide eyes. "I should have known. It's this damn hair, that look in your eyes, it's written all over you."

"You don't get it," John said, and his voice was catching over the oddest words. "He was still alive. Mitch, he was still alive, and he was screaming, begging me to...and no one was coming for us, we knew that, they...I was it, their last shot, and I killed him instead of saving him. I shot him right between his eyes."

Rodney's hands don't pull away the way he expected them to. "It was mercy," he breathed against his neck. "I know you, and it was mercy. You have to let go of it. You know what happened to him. He went somewhere bright, somewhere lovely, he had it easy."

John closed his eyes, let Rodney pull him closer, not further, and he didn't tell him that he lay there four hours before he died from loss of blood, or that he probably would have shot himself, too, if he'd had any bullets left.

"It was my fault," he said instead, because it always came back to that, and it didn't matter if the last thing Mitch ever said was 'thank you.' "I wasn't fast enough, I didn't make it back in time--Dex...god, he was in i pieces /i when I got there..."

"You gave your life for them," Rodney whispered. "You can't give more than that, John, there was nothing more you could have done."

The way Rodney said it, John could almost believe him; but forty years of guilt didn't disappear from words, no matter who spoke them. Rodney kissed him, and then pulled back, whispered "it wasn't your fault" and "you've got nothing to be sorry for" and "you're the most amazing person I've ever known" and then kissed him again.

"You have to know that's true," Rodney said. "I wouldn't settle for less than the best."

They started pulling at each other's clothes then, and John thought it felt a little like falling, this kind of attraction, because it was more than lust, and that was the only parallel he could draw. Rodney pulled his shirt over his head while he worked at his belt, and soon they were crashing against the wall, kissing like that was the only way left to breathe.

"I think I waited my whole life for this," Rodney said. "You were a little late, not showing up till I was dead."

"Better late than never," John told him breathlessly, and maneuvered them over. Rodney took the hint and pushed him gently towards the bed. They lay down together, slow, and still too fast.

"Let go for me," Rodney whispered, as he moved up against him suddenly, sending shock waves through him. John wasn't sure when they'd both been stripped completely, but it was all bare skin and movement now, and it was enough to make him dizzy in the best way possible.

John moaned as Rodney used all of his brilliant knowledge of friction to the best advantage, and then he let go, gave himself over almost completely. He couldn't tell if Rodney noticed the change or not, but he was pretty sure he did, because a second later Rodney was slipping his hands into his messy hair, and kissing him again.

It was over far too soon, with their emotions this high, and it had been too long for both of them. They had both waited more than a lifetime to find someone that fit this well.

Rodney's bed was small, but John didn't mind if Rodney didn't, he was too spent to move and he was asleep in minutes. Rodney, conversely, was wide-awake, and he watched him for a moment before running his fingers over the clear skin of John's stomach, and that spot right beneath his ribs where the bullet holes had been; there was nothing there anymore, because they only got to keep the scars they already had.

It still left John with more than enough, and Rodney placed a kiss over each one.


	4. Death Scenes

**Death Scenes  
**

* * *

Opening his eyes, Rodney stretched, his body still relaxed from sleep and the previous night's activities. He turned with a smile, eyes still closed, reaching out behind him for John and was instead met with empty air. Sitting up quickly he scanned the room, John was no where to be found, Thales curled up asleep in the spot John had been.

If he was being honest with himself, it wasn't the first time he'd slept with someone only to wake up the next morning and have them be gone but he was so sure that John was different. He was so sure that what they had was something more than just sex. Swallowing past the tightness in his throat, Rodney berated himself for being so stupid as to believe someone like _John_ could ever fall for someone like him.

Pushing himself up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he reached for his clothes. When he was dressed, Rodney paused, considered what he knew of John from the past months living with him, considered what John had said the night before. It didn't make sense that John would just leave, and though Rodney breathed easy about that, it left only one possible explanation. It was currently 6 a.m. and Rodney knew that John went jogging in the morning but after last night he couldn't see John taking off for a run without at least leaving a note, couldn't imagine him going anywhere without leaving a note... Except for one place.

Swearing under his breath, Rodney yanked on his shoes, grabbing his jacket and keys and hurried toward the door. There was only one place John could be—with Kolya.

Slamming the front door to the apartment building closed Rodney took the stairs two at a time, all the while cursing John for being so damn reckless and swearing on everything he could think of that if Kolya even so much as breathed on John, he'd be sorry.

Just before his foot hit the last step he heard an amused drawl, "Mornin' sunshine."

Rodney's head whipped around to see John standing on the sidewalk, two cups of coffee and a bag of doughnuts in his hands. "Oh thank God," Rodney sighed, sinking to sit on the front steps. "I thought you'd gone off with Kolya again."

John grinned, jostling everything in his hands until he held out a cup of coffee for Rodney. "Oh no, that's not for a couple of days," John said casually, sipping at the coffee in his own hand.

"What!?" Rodney was on his feet again, glaring at John. "Are you out of your mind?"

John leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to Rodney's mouth. "I'm going to tell Kolya, after he gets back from his _business_ trip, where he can shove his job."

Rodney followed John into the apartment, suddenly feeling much more relaxed. "Couldn't you just do it over the phone?" he asked hopefully.

"Trust me," John said, throwing a smile over his shoulder, "a phone call wouldn't cut it."

"You should take Ronon with you," Rodney said, closing the door behind them. "I know you don't like guns, John but you shouldn't go alone. It's not safe."

Tossing the bag of doughnuts onto the couch and taking Rodney's coffee from him, placing both cups on the table by the door, John pulled Rodney closer. Curling a hand behind Rodney's head, John pressed up against him, sliding their mouths together in a heated kiss. Pulling back John smirked. "I could really use a shower--wanna join me?"

Rodney's eyes glazed over at the suggestion. "You're trying to distract me."

"Is it working?" John grinned, letting his hand slip under Rodney's shirt.

Shoving John away from him, Rodney stripped out of his clothes, stumbling awkwardly towards the bathroom in his hurry to get naked. "Yes--but only for a little while so you better take advantage of it."

John laughed, following Rodney, his own clothes discarded haphazardly on the floor before he grabbed Rodney, pressing their naked bodies together, murmuring against Rodney's lips. "Oh I have every intention of doing just that."

Daniel woke up slumped on Jack's couch, groaning when he stretched, looking around the room for Jack. Smelling coffee coming from the kitchen he smiled and stood, getting the last kinks out before stumbling towards much needed caffeine. The kitchen was empty when he walked in and he frowned. Beside the coffee maker was another post-it and he shook his head thinking Jack must have a closet full of the little yellow notes for how much he wasted them on non-reaper business. Picking up the piece of paper he scowled.

"God dammit, Jack."

Ronon was already halfway through his breakfast when Daniel got there, and surprise both John and Rodney were late. He slid into the booth, ordering another coffee, his head pounding. Daniel had managed to get Jack to open up a little, he told him that he'd been married to Sara; that they'd had a son Charlie, but Jack wouldn't tell him what happened to either of them. In the end they'd ordered pizza and Daniel fell asleep in the middle of a hockey game.

Daniel looked at Ronon, shaking his head as the man shoveled the rest of his eggs into his mouth. "Where are John and Rodney?"

"Not here yet," Ronon rumbled back and Daniel just managed to refrain from rolling his eyes. "Where's Jack?"

Daniel bit his lip, the post-it in his pocket feeling like it weighed a ton, but feather light compared to the day planner heavy and ominous beside him in the booth. "Jack's not going to be around for a few days."

Ronon raised his head at that, eyes assessing Daniel before shrugging and returning to his breakfast. "That's it? You're not going to ask where he went?"

"None of my business," Ronon grunted, finishing off his coffee. "You handing out the assignments while he's gone?"

Daniel nodded absently, pulling the day planner onto the table and sticking a post-it to the table in front of Ronon. Ronon picked it up, shoving it in his pocket before sliding out of the booth and leaving without another word.

Twenty minutes later John and Rodney hurried in, both of them looking a little guilty and Daniel shook his head with a grin thinking it was about time. "Where's Jack?" Rodney asked sliding into the seat Ronon had vacated when he'd left, grabbing the menu and snapping his fingers at Janet, demanding a large black coffee. Janet was, by now, used to Rodney and just rolled her eyes as she finished taking the couple in the corners order. On the way towards the kitchen she smacked Rodney in the back of the head and he scowled but didn't say anything, John snickering beside him.

"He's got some…stuff to take care of for a few days."

"Stuff—Jack has stuff?" Rodney frowned, narrowing his eyes at Daniel. "What kind of stuff?"

"The personal kind," Daniel said with impatience, pinching the bridge of his nose, and flipping through the day planner, slapping two post-it notes in front of Rodney and John.

"And he left _you_ in charge?" John asked, shocked because he'd spent over twenty years with Daniel and Jack and Ronon and there was no way that Jack would entrust Daniel, Daniel who had tried to _save_ his first reap, who spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating what was on the other side of those pretty lights, who barely remembered to eat and sleep, in charge of them—him. John narrowed his eyes.

Daniel rolled his. "Look, I'm just handing out your assignments for a few days; I'm not vying for Jack's job."

"When is he coming back?" Rodney asked, taking a gulp of the coffee Janet placed in front of him.

"Few days," Daniel shrugged. "He didn't really tell me, left a post-it."

Rodney snorted and John smiled at Janet when she brought his breakfast, ignoring the glare Rodney sent his way.

"So, you two finally gave in to all that sexual tension, huh?" Daniel asked innocently, grinning when Rodney spit coffee all over his breakfast, and John choked on the sausage he was chewing.

Ronon pushed his way into the dim bar, eyes scouring the place for a familiar face. He stalked towards a booth at the back, sliding into it and grunting at the man across from him. The man smiled a sickly sweet smile. "Good to see you again, Ronon."

"You know why I'm here," Ronon growled.

The man nodded, sliding an envelope across the table towards him. "She's pretty."

Picking up the envelope, Ronon threw down one of his own, stood and walked away without a second glance. When he was outside, around the corner, he opened the envelope, fingers tracing the smiling face of a beautiful young woman, a face he hadn't seen in a long time. The slip of paper in the envelope gave a location and Ronon nodded to himself, putting both in the inside pocket of his trench coat before slipping into the streams of people crowding the streets.

Rodney and John went their separate ways after breakfast; Rodney to work and John to wherever he was going. Rodney tried not to worry, tried not to think about Kolya or what John quitting might entail. Instead he concentrated on getting some work done before his reap after lunch. He'd have to make up another excuse to Felger about why he was leaving early, but that wouldn't be hard. He'd gotten pretty good at lying the last few months.

He rolled his eyes at the newest stack of papers on his desk, wishing he could tell Radek to do his own god-damned paperwork. Rodney missed working at Atlantis Labs, where all he had to concentrate on were his projects. Missed his friends too, even though he'd never really had that many.

John and Jack had tried to tell him to leave his old life behind but every so often Rodney snuck back, hid in shadows and alleyways, just for a glimpse of the people he used to call friends, a glimpse of the life he'd been happy with, a life he still missed.

It was the kind of place Jack always knew he would never end up; would have had to be around too long to get here, and as it was, he'd gotten more years than he'd ever bargained for.

Reaping a place like this would be damn easy. Almost everyone had given up already, and those that hadn't would in not too long. It was a long-term care hospital, set aside from the main asylum, and Jack could feel if not see the spirits as though they were still walking the halls.

It was giving him the creeps, and he wasn't easily spooked.

"You sure you want to do this, Jack?" Kowalski asked.

Jack knew the answer, it was no, easy, but it had taken him over eighty years to get this far, and he couldn't turn back now, not with time running out. Jack may have forever now, but not everyone on Earth did.

"Yeah, Kowalski," he said. "Sure."

"Room 86 then. And, Jack--" Kowalski broke off and broke eye contact, and Jack knew it was going to be bad. "Well, you know what to expect."

He didn't have a clue. The last time he'd seen his son, he'd been seven years old, and he'd been holding a gun.

It was a little hard for Jack to move past that image in his head.

Any other day he would have had that drawer locked tight. He wondered sometimes how many days Charlie had tried to open it only to find it wouldn't budge, or if that was the very first time, in some cruel twist of fate.

He'd just kissed Sara, and turned to go into the house. He'd been calling Charlie's name, smiling the way he never had much reason to before them.

He didn't remember much past opening the door. Just that weird little prick in his chest as his body crashed to the ground, and Charlie's anguished cries.

All he remembered thinking was better it him, than Charlie.

Charlie never had kids of his own, Kowalski told him. He was in and out of psychiatric hospitals since age nine, when people started to give up on him. Sara never did, but even she couldn't live forever.

Jack had kind of hoped Charlie would just forget it, block it out, move on. Kid should of known he'd never blame him.

He was sitting at the window when Jack walked in, and he didn't look anything like the same. Not even his eyes. They were wide and kind of shell-shocked, like they were stuck in that same moment. His hair was completely white and he looked small, much too small. Not much bigger than he remembered him.

"Charlie," he whispered.

Charlie didn't turn around. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he said. He'd been saying the same thing for last few years now. Kowalski said he almost never stopped.

Jack went to the window and tried to see what Charlie saw. "It wasn't your fault," he said. "You were just a kid." His voice almost breaks, but it doesn't matter. Charlie can't hear him anyway.

Kowalski finally took his soul at quarter to twelve, and the room lit up with a baseball diamond across the floor.

Jack wasn't like Daniel. He usually didn't think or care about what lay on the other side, but today he knew it was somewhere better. It had to be.

Her grave was untouched. All the people that had known her had been dead for years.

Ronon was never much for being sentimental, but whatever capacity for feeling he was missing he'd only lost when he lost her. It had kind of felt like losing his entire world.

The undead weren't supposed to visit people from their lives, but Ronon had no use for rules, and she couldn't be interfered with anyway. Can't interfere with the dead, even John would have to admit to that.

Teyla Emmagan was etched in the stone. Loving daughter, it said. No mention of how she held his heart, no mention of the way she was loved by him. He dropped to his knees and rested his forehead against her name.

He took three long, deep breaths, recited the prayer she taught him, the only one he knew, and placed a small rock atop the gravestone before leaving.

Just so people would know that she was still missed.

Rodney ate his lunch outside of Atlantis Labs, on the same bench he'd sat on a hundred times before. Radek walked out the doors at twelve o'clock. His hair was its usual mess and he had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his old, familiar blue windbreaker.

He sat down right beside him. Rodney held his breath, waiting for him to turn, to recognize him. Of course, he didn't; just sat there and mumbled to himself, scribbling equations in a spiral notebook.

Rodney fought the urge to correct his work, or strike up the conversation they left off the day he died. He wanted to tell Radek he was a good friend, one of his only ones, and that he was sorry it had taken his own funeral for him to realize it.

He could imagine the conversation in his head. It would go something like this:

"Radek, hi. I know this is going to sound weird, but I'm Rodney. I'm undead. I take souls now and work for Felger."

Radek would jump to his feet. "You are crazy man, don't kid about my good friend."

Rodney would then say something brilliant that only he would know, and Radek would hug him and start talking a mile a minute, and tell him to come back to work, that there were problems that couldn't be solved without him.

Rodney opened his mouth, ready to speak, but Radek was already on his feet, oblivious, and heading back inside.

Rodney rested his head in his hands and reminded himself that he was dead. Dead. Undead. Whichever. It didn't make much of a difference, even if the science minded Radek could believe him and welcome him back, Jack would put a stop to it.

And even if he could get it back, have it all again, he'd just go back to being that oblivious man that yelled at everyone and couldn't see past his own arrogance. He'd go back to being that man that never even noticed he had friends, that couldn't do anything but solve equations--that man that didn't have John.

In some ways he thought he might be more alive now than he had been then.

Daniel had barely been thirty when it happened. He met a man named Jack on his way to the unveiling--strange guy with a baseball cap and a curious smile, and his friend, a young kid with a bounce in his step and whose touch was like an electric shock.

Daniel's stomach had lurched the way it always did that last inch of an elevator ride, but it had passed just as quickly as Jack and his friend could disappear.

He hadn't thought that much of it at the time; he had other things on his mind. He was standing in the center of the exhibit, against Catherine's advice.

One minute he'd been directing the placement of the cover-stone, and the next everyone was screaming and he was dead.

Daniel had taken it better than most. The whole of his response had been a quiet 'huh,' and then a thirty-minute lecture on the various theories of the afterlife and their relevance when faced with the truth.

He hadn't left anyone behind. His family had died before him and he had acquaintances, not friends. His work was his life, and death didn't really interfere with that. He could still read, research, wander the museum.

Since his death, he'd learned to speak seven more languages.

Jack thought it was a waste of time, but the way Daniel saw it, that was something they all had more than enough of now. Why not waste it?

He was an adaptive person, always had been. Had to be for his job. He had gone all over the world and while he worked on digs, he became a part of the culture that surrounded the site.

That was just something Daniel was good at.

The problem was, Daniel wasn't just dead, he now had obligations. He spent his lifetime avoiding getting tied down to any one place. Daniel cared about everyone but no one person more than the rest, because gaining particular attachments...well, Daniel knew how that went. One way or another, you lost them.

He supposed that being undead had made him careless. Jack, John, Ronon, even Rodney now, were people he cared about, people he was concerned with, and they all seemed to be going through their own personal crisis.

And none of them wanted any help.

Daniel sighed and leaned against Jack's truck. He was still inside. It hadn't been hard to figure out where he was going, and it had been even easier to figure out what for. Charlie would be about eighty-eight now, and Jack would have been the first person to see him on the list.

The others would figure things out, Daniel was sure, but Jack--Jack was getting his help, whether he wanted it or not.

Rodney found Thales in John's room when he finally made it home. The sheets were still a mess, but he was too tired to wash them, or even head to his own room. He collapsed onto the bed and while Thales protested at the intrusion, he quickly forgave him, and curled up beside his head.

Rodney glanced towards the night table, and that picture of John. He wrapped his fingers around the silver chain of his dog tags and held them up to the light. He was so hard to imagine, the John in that picture, with his cocky grin and that gun strapped on his thigh.

Rodney hadn't changed much since he died. He thought that John seemed like he had morphed into someone else entirely; but that was a lot of guesswork from one single picture, and it wasn't like John talked at length about his life before.

Rodney knew that pictures could lie just as well as people, and for all he knew, John hadn't changed at all.

He sat up when he heard the door, and John wandered in a few minutes later. He leaned against the doorjamb with a grin. "Hey."

Rodney smiled. "Hey. I was just looking at these." He placed the dog tags gently back where he found them, and John's eyes tracked their every move.

"Yeah. It's sentimental, I know," he said, and looked down at the carpet. "That's not why I keep them, though. It's not to remember good times. It's to remember something else."

"John--" Rodney started.

"It's okay, Rodney," John interrupted. "It's fine, really. I'm fine. It was a long time ago."

Rodney took a deep breath. John didn't move any closer. "You know, I've been thinking, and it said they never found you--your body," he said. "On that site."

John's eyes raised to latch onto the wall. "They didn't."

"Then how did you get these?" Rodney asked, reaching out and touching the dog tags again.

"They're called dog tags, Rodney," John said. "We military guys all get them."

"You know that isn't what I mean, John," Rodney said. "I want to know how you got them back."

John spent the Christmas of '66 in Vietnam.

Jack gave him two days, not more, but he took three; spent one of them in the jungle, digging holes in the wet ground. He put Mitch in first, ripped the dog tags from his neck and reached out to close his eyes; there was nothing to be done about the bullet hole between them.

He laid Dex down next, trying not to gag as he pulled the pieces into the shallow grave. He found the dog tags nearby, stained with blood, Dex's blood, Mitch's, his own, and stuffed them in his pocket beside the other pair. John didn't bother marking the graves, because they would never be found, never visited again, even by him.

His own body was stiff and decaying nearby, still tightly gripping the gun he'd used to kill Mitch. John wrapped his fingers around the silver chain of his dog tags, brushing dead skin, and pulled them free.

Then he kicked the empty pistol clear, and lit a match so he could burn the rest.

Rodney thought for a minute he'd pushed to far again, asked too much, but John just smiled disarmingly and stepped into the room. "I got them off a friend," he said, because the truth was always easiest to tell, and if he used it right, he wouldn't give any away at all.

John was really very good at that.

Ronon taped her picture on the wall above his bed. His apartment didn't really have a place to set a frame, and he couldn't be bothered to steal one anyway. He felt far enough from her as it was, no need to set her behind a piece of glass.

It was funny because he was so _relieved_ when he died. So ready. He never feared it, not once, not even when he still had her. It wasn't so much faith in an afterlife that gave him his indifferent view of death as his appreciation of the time he'd had.

People could say a lot about Ronon, but they could never say he hadn't lived.

He didn't really feel as though he'd died, though. Limbo. That's what they called it. Stuck between the before and the after with no way back to either one.

He wondered sometimes, what she saw, just before. He thought he should probably know what would have tempted her, what would have been shining in that strange blue light, but he doesn't.

He doesn't even know what his would be.

Not that it mattered all that much. Ronon wasn't sure he'd even get them.

He half-suspected he might just disappear.

Rodney's newest reap took him to the mall, a place he avoided in life like the plague. "Why don't these people buy their shit online like a civilized person?" he muttered to himself, stomping through the crowd of overly enthusiastic shoppers.

He had told Felger that morning that his mother had died (which was true in a way—she had died, fifteen years before) and he needed the afternoon off to arrange the funeral as he was her only living relative. The idiot believed him and what was more he actually had given Rodney the next three days off. So here he was traipsing through the dregs of society in search of _J. Winston_ and wondering what the hell he was going to do for the next three days.

John was supposed to meet Kolya tomorrow night to tell him he quit and Rodney knew (whether John liked it or not) that he would be there—with Ronon as backup—just in case Kolya didn't take too kindly to John quitting on him. So that gave him one thing to do over the next couple of days at least—try and convince Ronon they needed to keep an eye on John and make sure Kolya didn't try and hurt him—Rodney could be very convincing when properly motivated. But first he had to find this goddamned idiot he was supposed to reap. Who the hell died in a mall?

"Woohoo!" Rodney heard screaming from somewhere above him. Squinting up to the second floor he shook his head. Of _course_ he'd get stuck with another stoner, this one trying to skateboard down the railing of the fucking _escalator_. With a put upon sigh he got to the second floor just as the kid—who honestly wasn't a kid anymore, he had to be at least thirty, and definitely should have known better—was ready to perform his very last stunt (not that he knew it would be his last). "Hey, Dude, check this out," Stoner said to Rodney with a grin.

Rolling his eyes Rodney slapped the guy in the back of the head, feeling the familiar tingle whenever he reaped a soul. "You're an idiot and you're going to get yourself killed but by all means, _dude_," Rodney waved his hand magnanimously towards the escalator. "Have at it."

The mall obviously had shitty security as his reap not only had time to have a conversation, as…stimulating as it was, with Rodney but he had time to actually go ahead and get his ass killed by missing the railing of the escalator and doing a header off the second floor of the mall to land crumbled and broken on the floor below before security even showed up.

"_Dude_, that is so not cool."

Rodney snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets, turning away from the scene before him. "Congratulations," Rodney snipped, "it's not often my reaps are quite so…" he threw his hands up in the air and turned to glare at the man hovering behind him. "What the hell were you thinking?" Rodney demanded.

"Oh wow," his stoner muttered, ignoring Rodney's question, eyes even more glazed than they were when he was alive. "Righteous!" Rodney turned and watched him running towards his lights—a skate park, of course (obviously whoever was in charge of the light show was anything but imaginative)—and just shook his head again before walking away. Proof positive that his stoner obviously i wasn't /i thinking at all.

The sheer stupidity of some people…Rodney had never known humanity was exactly like he'd always said it was. The absolute unfairness of it was overwhelming at times. He, Rodney McKay, genius, taken well before his time, was left to watch while the rest of these people, dumber than the rocks Johnson studied, were still walking around enjoying their lives—what he could have contributed to the world should have assured his long life; these people weren't contributing anything but _carbon dioxide_ to the air.

"Bad day?" Rodney spun around to see John smiling, slouched against the wall beside…

"Oh thank God, _coffee_," Rodney muttered, walking past John and into the Starbucks John was leaning beside, ordering an extra large Café Mocha.

"I'll take that as a yes," John chuckled, following Rodney in and ordering a regular coffee.

"The world is full of idiots," Rodney growled, sitting at one of the empty tables and cradling his drink between two hands. John sat opposite him, sipping his coffee with a raised eyebrow. "I'm serious," Rodney said, a little insulted at the look of doubt on John's face. "Do you know how many of my reaps died…"

"All of them?" John replied cheerfully, grinning at the scowl on Rodney's face.

"They all died because of their own stupidity," Rodney snapped. "Today was just another shining example of what humanity has to offer—and believe me, what it's offering, you don't want."

"They're not all that bad," John said, leaning his elbows on the table.

Rodney scowled again, this time at the table top but kept quiet.

John pushed away from the table, placing a hand on Rodney's shoulder. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Okay, while Rodney occasionally missed his old life—his actual life—he did admit that being undead had a few…perks.

"Oh _god_," he moaned, burying his fingers in John's hair, his hips thrusting up into warm, wet heat again and again. So it was kind of a shitty day, but Rodney couldn't have cared less, not with John's tongue doing _that_ and when his fingers were right _there_. "Stop, stop," he panted, pulling gently on John's hair, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut tight at the vision of John's mouth sliding up his cock, releasing it with a wet, lewd slurp. Taking a second to catch his breath, he opened his eyes, John hovering above him, a concerned frown on his face.

"You okay?"

Rodney reached up, pulling him down into a deep kiss before burying his face in the crook of John's neck, breathing him in. "I want you to fuck me."

John's hips snapped forward, sliding against Rodney's with delicious friction making them both moan. His forehead to Rodney's collarbone, John took a deep steadying breath before nodding, pressing a firm kiss to Rodney's skin. "Okay," he croaked hoarsely and a little wobbly, pulling back to look into Rodney's eyes. "You sure?"

Running his thumb over John's bottom lip he grinned, pushing his hips against John's again, his erection poking John in the stomach. "Yes, quite sure," Rodney said wryly, laughing when John nipped his thumb before opening his mouth to John's insistent tongue.

It had been a while since either one of them had done this, no time or inclination for more than the odd hand-job or blow-job from some nameless stranger in a bar or back alley ages from this moment in time and Rodney was left writhing, panting under John as he took his time stretching him, dragging each and every sensation out until all Rodney could do was fist his hands in the sheets and hang on. His heart racing, cock throbbing while John's lips ghosted over every inch of skin he could reach, his fingers never ceasing their torturously slow rhythm as they slid in and out of Rodney's body.

John sliding inside Rodney felt like coming home, like a part of Rodney had been missing until John, with his crazy hair and goofy grin came along, sneaking his way past all Rodney's long familiar walls, each brush of skin against skin silently whispering '_finally_'. Rodney had waited a lifetime (literally) to find this and he swore they would need to pry his cold, undead fingers away before he ever gave John up.

When they fell asleep, Rodney's fingers were entwined possessively with John's, not even the relaxation of sleep enough for his grip to loosen.

Daniel slid into the booth across from Jack, eyeing the man as he read the sports page, eating his fruit loops and completely ignoring Daniel. Janet came around and Daniel ordered coffee, shifting in the seat, thrumming his fingers along the tabletop as he waited for Jack to acknowledge him. He managed to wait an entire three minutes and forty two seconds by his watch before he broke. "Good morning, Jack," he said with an overly cheerful chirp that usually had Jack demanding to know what Daniel had done, what he was planning to do and how much trouble Jack was going to need to get him out of.

"Daniel," Jack drawled, eyes still firmly glued to the paper in his hand.

"Nice weather," Daniel commented, thanking Janet when she brought his coffee and one of O'Malley's famous steak and eggs platters.

Jack gave a non-committal grunt that would have made Ronon proud, downing the rest of his coffee and pushing away the empty cereal bowl.

The night before Jack had been sullen, quiet and evasive—more so than usual and Daniel hadn't gleaned anything from him that he didn't already suspect. Despite fully intending to help Jack through this, Daniel wasn't quite ready to push too hard. So they'd spent the night watching hockey and The Simpsons reruns before Jack had said he was turning in, telling Daniel he knew where the guestroom was.

Jack was gone when Daniel woke up that morning and Daniel had showered quickly, stopping by his own place for a change of clothes before hurrying here to try and get a little time with Jack before the others got there. He was hoping that Jack would be a little more talkative today but…

"Enough Daniel," Jack growled, finally tearing his eyes away from last night's hockey scores. "I'm fine, alright? Stop worrying—"

Before Daniel could respond Ronon was loping in, sliding into the seat beside Daniel and ordering a stack of pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon and hash browns and an extra large orange juice. He nodded to both Daniel and Jack, snagging Jack's paper and grinning at Jack's indignant 'Hey'.

Daniel was a little nauseous by the time John and Rodney arrived—Ronon had been particularly intense in his food consumption this morning, which Daniel had gotten used to but Ronon's newest quirk left Daniel a little green.

"Oh my god," Rodney said, nose curled up in disgust. "Did you put mustard and ketchup on your pancakes?"

"S'good," Ronon mumbled before pushing the plate away with a satisfied sigh, downing the rest of his juice before holding out his hand toward Jack.

Rolling his eyes, Jack slapped a post-it into Ronon's hand, watching as the man threw some bills onto the table before he stalked from the restaurant with a rumbled, "Later," thrown over his shoulder.

"Okay so I need a favor," Rodney started without preamble, walking quickly after Ronon, glancing once behind himself to make sure John hadn't followed him out of O'Malley's.

Ronon just snorted and Rodney narrowed his eyes, quickening his pace so as to be walking beside Ronon rather than behind. "I'm serious," Rodney snapped. "I need you to help me protect John."

"Sheppard can look after himself," Ronon rumbled and Rodney rolled his eyes because yes, yes, they'd already played a round of 'John's a big-boy'.

"Look," Rodney ground out. "John is going to go meet Kolya tonight." He noted with satisfaction that Ronon's steps began to slow. "He plans to tell Kolya where he can shove his job but we both know that's not going to go over well."

Ronon glanced at Rodney from the corner of his eye. "You've never met Kolya…"

"No," Rodney snapped again, eyes a bright burning blue, "but I got the floor show after his lackeys decided to use John as target practice, remember?"

Nodding, Ronon stuffed his hands in his pockets. "John's not going to like you interfering."

"Well that's just too fucking bad because I am not about to let him get himself killed…again."

"We can't die," Ronon shrugged.

Rodney growled, making Ronon smirk. "I don't care, that's not the point. The point is that we can still get hurt and John has this fucking martyr complex or something and seems to think that scum like this Kolya deserve, just by the mere fact that they are still alive, to get away with it, as long as it's John's undead ass getting hurt."

Ronon grunted his agreement, turning down an alleyway, leaving Rodney's steps to falter before he changed directions, following Ronon. "So are you going to help me or what?"

"What's the plan?" Ronon asked, pulling the yellow post-it note from his pocket and glancing at it before shoving it back in his coat.

"Well," Rodney started, fumbling a little. "I haven't really worked the details out just yet—I wanted to make sure I could convince you to help first." He looked a little sheepish, shrugging before he slipped back into his normal arrogant mask. "But I'll come up with something brilliant, don't you worry. Kolya won't know what hit him."

"You gonna kill him?"

Ronon stuck out a hand, brushing past a homeless man dressed in rags, taking his soul and continuing down the alley. Rodney looked back, watching as the man began coughing, collapsing to his knees before falling to the side. Suddenly he was walking beside them. Ronon clapped him on the shoulder, pointing to the lights ahead of them. A huge house, warmly lit filled the end of the alley and a woman and boy about 4 years old stood on the front steps waving and smiling at the man as he began running toward them.

With a blink the homeless man and his lights were gone.

Rodney shook his head. "I don't want to kill him," he said quietly. "But John is my only concern."

Ronon nodded, slapping Rodney on the back before pointing left. "We're going to need some stuff."

Daniel smiled politely at Catherine—this was the third time this week that she had brought him cookies. Out of nowhere she said, "I want you to meet my granddaughter," completely ignoring Daniel's 'deer-in-the-headlights' look as she continued. "She's a sweet girl, loves history and archaeology in particular; I think you'd get along wonderfully. She's about your age, tall, thin, blonde…"

"Catherine," Daniel began but she cut him off.

"I'm not taking no for an answer," she said affectionately. "Daniel, you spend too much time cooped up in this stuffy old museum. You're too young not to have a life outside of these dusty walls."

Daniel smiled. "I appreciate your concern, Catherine," he grinned. "But I like this stuffy old museum, dusty walls and all."

She huffed out a put upon sigh, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Very well, but if you change your mind I know Sarah would love to meet you."

"I'll keep that in mind," he laughed, shaking his head and biting into a cookie. He was a sucker for Catherine's famous chocolate chip.

When she left his office he returned to the notebook open before him on the table. He stared at the entries dating back to his very first reap. He'd started keeping it and couldn't seem to stop. It was full of his observations and his speculations about the afterlife, about the small amounts of information he'd gleaned from each of his reaps—about their lives before death, about what they saw waiting for them.

The others thought he was crazy to wonder about it all. Jack had told him once that there was no point wondering or worrying, when it was Daniel's time he'd get his own lights and all his questions would be answered.

Daniel wondered how long he would have to wait before that happened, before he met his quota and his own lights waited for him.

Ronon grinned broadly and Rodney rolled his eyes. "Do you really think we need walkie-talkies?" The look Ronon gave him had Rodney sighing dramatically and adding the walkie-talkies to the already huge stack of 'stuff' Ronon said they needed in order to protect John. Rodney was beginning to think that Ronon was just using this as excuse to trick Rodney into going on a shopping spree for some cool new toys for him because if there was one thing Rodney knew, it was that Ronon could take down i anyone /i with his bare hands. There was no way they needed i all /i of this stuff.

"Alright," Rodney groused. "That's enough, I am officially broke."

Ronon snorted and tossed a shiny bowie knife on top of the pile and clapped Rodney on the shoulder. "Meet you outside."

"Yes, yes," Rodney muttered. "Don't worry about me, it's not like I have a bad back or anything."

When Rodney stumbled out of the military store Ronon had just spent $1300 in, he shoved the bags at the man leaning against the front of the building. "I bought it, you can carry it," Rodney snapped, twisting this way and that after his hands were empty. Ronon just rolled his eyes.

Rodney let Ronon take all the supplies home because he didn't want John to see anything and get suspicious. Rodney headed back to the apartment, desperately wanting a shower, a pot of coffee, and John naked and writhing underneath him.

When he walked into the apartment, Rodney's breath caught in his throat. John was up against the wall, a towel around his hips and there was a gorilla of a man pressed against his back, his hand reaching for the towel around John's waist. "What the fuck is going on here?" Rodney snapped, watching as the man pinning John to the wall turned to face him. He had cold dead eyes, his face pock-marked and scarred. The man released John, taking a step back with an ugly smile on his face.

"Rodney," John said quietly, his voice low and dangerous. "Wait in the bedroom."

"Yes, _Rodney_," the man parroted, "Wait in the bedroom, John and I aren't quite done…"

"Like hell you aren't!" Rodney yelled, yanking the front door open again. "Get the fuck out of our apartment." He didn't need introductions to know who this man was.

Kolya smirked. "Cozy," he drawled, voice nothing but gravel. "Remember what I said, John," Kolya said quietly, dead eyes locked on John's before they traveled down his body leaving Rodney feeling queasy. And then he marched toward the door, giving Rodney a twisted grin before closing the door silently behind him.

John sagged against the wall; head tilted back, eyes closed. Rodney was so mad he was pretty sure if he wasn't already dead he'd be stroking out about now. "What the fuck was he doing here?" Rodney asked, the panic he'd managed to hide from Kolya beginning to seep into his voice.

"Don't worry about it," John said quietly, not meeting Rodney's eyes as he pushed off the wall. "I'm going to go get dressed."

"John…" Rodney started but John was already in his room, the door closing, shutting Rodney out.

Rodney paced the living room for a few minutes before rushing into his bedroom, reaching for his cell phone and closing the door. He quickly dialed Ronon's number. "It's me," he said as soon as Ronon picked up. "Kolya was just here."

Ronon growled out that he was on his way and hung up. Rodney sat on his bed feeling completely useless and so scared he couldn't think past the image of John, almost naked and vulnerable with fucking Kolya plastered to his back. If he hadn't just walked in… But no, he couldn't think like that, didn't want to think about that because if he let himself think about it he knew Ronon wouldn't get the chance to do anything to Kolya because Rodney would kill the bastard himself for daring to lay a hand on John.

John's bedroom door opened and Rodney was on his feet before he could think twice. "John…"

"I've got to go out," John said, throwing Rodney a grin. "Don't wait up."

"Stop!" Rodney yelled, surprised when John actually did. "You expect me to just let you go after what I just walked in on?"

"I can take care of myself, McKay," John growled, eyes narrowing dangerously. "It's none of your business."

"None of my business?" Rodney snapped. "None of my business that I just walked into our apartment to see you pinned against the wall, naked with some fucking psychopath plastered to your back? None of my business that my lover could have been…"

"Don't!" John shouted, holding his hand up. He took a step closer, eyes pleading, voice soft. "Rodney, please…just…don't…let it go, okay?"

Rodney crossed the space separating them, pulling John into a rough hug. "Jesus," he hissed. "How can you ask me to let this go?"

John wrapped his arms around Rodney, burying his face against Rodney's neck. "Because I'm asking and I need you to," he answered quietly. "I can handle Kolya."

"What are you going to do?" Rodney asked, pulling back and wrapping his arms around himself, his eyes wide and frightened.

John winked. "I'll think of something."

"You don't get to just say that and walk out of here," Rodney snapped. "You haven't thought of a good way to deal with this yet, what's different now?"

"Kolya was here to remind me to show up tonight," John admitted. "And that's exactly what I intend to do."

"Because you're the suicidal undead?" Rodney spat angrily. "Seriously, are you completely unhinged?"

"Kolya thinks I have something he wants," John said. "I don't. Once he realizes that, he'll stop, and it's over. He'll forget all about me just like everyone else--we fade, Rodney. We're the figures they see out of the corners of their eyes. The ones they don't remember once they make it home and lock the door behind them."

"I don't feel dead, John," Rodney said quietly. "I don't. I've got a heartbeat, you know. I feel pain. Pleasure. I've got the same mind I've always had. And so you'll forgive me if I don't want to just fade away!"

John turned away with a sigh. "I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I don't..."

"Them," Rodney repeated. "You keep saying 'them.' We were _them_, you know, living. And we're still here now. We're here for a reason."

"Exactly," John said. "We're here to take their souls. This isn't borrowed time, this is _punishment_."

Rodney looked like he'd been struck. "Is that what you really think?"

John pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes, before dropping them agitatedly and turning back to Rodney. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Rodney, in my life, in my unlife, _ever_, but that doesn't change what we are."

"And what are we?" Rodney asked quietly.

"We're dead," John said. Then he turned and went out the door.

Daniel used to be terrified of heights. It never stopped him scaling Pyramids anyway, but still, he was terrified.

He wondered what would happen if he fell now his body couldn't break. He leaned out over the edge, squinting towards the ground. There was that edge of vertigo still. He wasn't cured completely, even knowing he'd survive, if only to stay as he was.

He leaned back away again and pushed his hands back into his pockets.

"You know, I almost didn't notice."

Daniel spun around at the voice. Jack was leaning against the roof entrance door, staring up at the moon.

"Notice what?" Daniel asked.

"You," Jack said. "Slipping into one of your moods again. I see you've started a new journal."

"I ran out of pages in the last one," Daniel said.

Jack laughed and shook his head. "And you're worrying about me."

"I don't keep things to myself like you," Daniel said. "Writing is cathartic."

"It's more than that. You just can't help yourself, can you?" Jack asked. "I remember watching you before you died. You were so completely absorbed inside your own thoughts you didn't even hear them shouting for you to get out of the way."

Daniel shrugged. "If we learn anything in this job, Jack, it's that we rarely get the death we expect."

Jack continued as though he hadn't spoken. "What worries me is you've got the same look in your eyes now that you had then."

There was a flash of bright blue in the distance, like a tear in the sky. It was only lightening, but it caught Daniel's focus and held it there. "You've been doing this forever," Daniel said, almost dreamily. "Don't you want to know what's next?"

Jack let out a heavy breath, before grabbing Daniel's sleeve and giving him a push back inside. "No, I don't," he said.

Rodney opened the door and Ronon stood there like Rambo, a rifle thrown over his back and a pistol about three times the size the one Rodney had hanging loosely from one hand.

Mrs. Troscky, from next door, stood looking through what little space the chain on her door would allow, protectively holding her cat. She slammed it shut the moment Rodney made eye contact.

Rodney sighed. "You missed him," he said. "John's gone, too."

Ronon looked disappointed, and he held the pistol against his chest, almost as though he were consoling it.

"John's still planning to meet him tonight," Rodney said, before turning and moving back into the apartment. He fell down on the couch and placed his head in his hands. "I don't think I can help him."

Ronon kicked the door closed behind them and jumped up to sit on the counter, setting his pistol by the airplane cookie jar Jack had bought as a housewarming gift. "I can help him," Ronon said. "People are really easy to kill. Only took eight bullets to take me down. My gun's special made. It's got twelve."

Rodney winced. "Okay, not what I meant," he snapped. "John, he's screwed up. He thinks he's being punished."

"Maybe he is," Ronon said.

Rodney glared at him and surged back to his feet. "He didn't do anything wrong!"

"Doesn't mean he's not being punished," Ronon said. "All those light shows we see? They each make their own. We make our own hell too, McKay."

"So I'm his hell then?" Rodney asked. "Because it's not like that for _me_, and I can't keep doing this."

Ronon rolled his eyes. "It's not about you," he said. "Or it is."

"Do you have to work at being this unhelpful?" Rodney snapped.

"What I mean is, John thinks he's being punished right? Then you come along, first time in maybe forever he's happy, doesn't know how to deal. Thinks he doesn't deserve it. Thinks, how can I screw my unlife up? Enter Kolya."

Rodney blinked. "That's possibly the most simplified bit of exposition I've ever heard."

Ronon shrugged. "It's a gift."

Rodney bit his lip, then raised his eyes to meet Ronon's. "I don't know where he's gone."

Ronon jumped down from the counter. "I do," he said. "Been there once before."

Kolya was waiting for him when he arrived, Sora just behind him. Kolya grinned smugly at John. "Where's your guard dog gone?"

"I came alone, like you asked," John said, glancing at Sora and back. "See you brought back-up, though. You planning to hide behind her if things get out of hand?"

Kolya glared at him. "Leave," he said, motioning Sora to leave. Sora glared at him for a moment, but did as she was told. "Is that better?"

"Follow her out," John said. "_That_ would be better."

Kolya laughed. "You don't change, John, I'll give you that."

"I can say the same about you," John said. "And to clarify, it's not a compliment."

Kolya pulled out a gun and unceremoniously shot John in the chest. John staggered back, hitting the concrete with a thud and an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. He coughed up blood and then laughed. "Haven't we done this already?" he asked.

Kolya walked over to him, staring down unemotionally. Then he dropped down to his knees beside John and ripped his shirt open to examine the wound. The bullet wound was obvious, still gushing blood, and Kolya frowned.

"What happens now?" he asked.

John closed his eyes. "Probably not what you're expecting," he said. "I'm not what you think."

"The other night," Kolya said. "They told me they shot you three times, but by my count you've only got one bullet in you."

"I wear a vest on jobs," John ground out, "but then, I've told you that before."

"You're not wearing one now."

"My fault for trusting you," he said.

"You don't," Kolya said. "You never have."

Kolya tilted his head as the bleeding slowed. He ran the palm of his hand over John's chest, ignoring his gasp of pain, and wiped the blood clear of the wound. It was half closed already. Kolya grabbed John by what was left of his shirt and pulled him to his feet, slamming him into the wall. "What the hell are you?" he asked.

"Not really a question I'm qualified to answer," John told him, letting himself rest against the wall, breathing hard. "You're not going to give up, are you?"

Kolya grabbed John's chin, forcing him to look at him. "I've been studying you. You can take life with a touch," he said.

"Maybe you should back off then," John said.

Kolya laughed. "But not from me," he continued. "You've never been able to hurt me. You would have killed me long before now if you could. Do you know what that means?"

"You're going to count yourself as lucky and move to Tijuana?" John asked.

"It means I have power over you," Kolya said. "It means you belong to me now."

Kolya's hand wrapped around John's neck, cutting off any response. Kolya grinned manically. "You never should have turned me down, John."

Rodney staggered off the back of Ronon's motorcycle, pulling the helmet off with a sound of distress. "You're insane," he said. "You almost hit that truck head on. We aren't going to be any good to John if we're plastered on a windshield."

Ronon just looked amused. "You said to go fast."

"That was when I thought you had a _car_...not, not this thing--" Rodney cut himself off as Ronon raised his gun and aimed it at him. "Okay, sorry, wow, I won't insult the motorcycle, it's...lovely, really--"

"McKay, shut up," Ronon said, "and move out of my line of fire."

Rodney spun around and then backed up towards Ronon. A woman with red hair stood just a few feet away, aiming a small gun at them. "You'll want to be leaving," she said. "My boss doesn't want to be disturbed."

"That so," Ronon said. Then he threw his pistol like it was a boomerang and hit her in the head. It clattered to the ground as she fell into a heap. Ronon walked over and picked his weapon up, nudging her with his foot.

"You just--" Rodney started. "You _threw_ it."

"She was annoying me," Ronon said. He dusted his weapon off and examined it closely, making sure it hadn't been damaged at all by her skull. "Looks okay."

"Better than her," Rodney agreed, kneeling beside her. She was out cold.

The night lit up for a moment in another flash of lightening, and Ronon turned back to the building ahead of them and the large, wide open hanger doors. "They'll be in there," he said.

"I can't believe John's never taken me here," Rodney said. "All this time and I never asked to see where he worked."

"Doesn't like bringing people here," Ronon said. "Wouldn't have asked me to come if he hadn't needed me to."

"Why?" Rodney asked.

"Not sure," Ronon said. "Maybe because it's the one part of his past he chose to keep."

The sound of a gunshot brought their conversation to an abrupt halt. Rodney started running without checking to make sure Ronon was behind him, never stopping to wonder what he thought he could do on his own.

Rodney made it to the hanger doors and skid to a stop inside. The lights on the left side were flickering in and out, but the ones above Kolya and John remained steady and Rodney could see them both perfectly clear.

John was gasping around the blood slicked fingers clutching at his throat, and Kolya was smiling _smiling_; probably shot John again just to see if he'd still bleed, and Rodney was glad it was Ronon holding the gun, because if he had it in his hands he'd gladly cross lines he'd never even skirted before.

John's eyes flickered in his direction, a little glazed from pain, though unafraid. Rodney would rather he was terrified, because this quiet acceptance was so much worse, split his heart apart that little bit further, and when this was over he was going to tell John he doesn't deserve this, that he doesn't have to pay some price in blood for things he never had any control over anyway; and he was going to whisper that he was important into every place on his skin.

Rodney took this all in, felt this all, in some kind of small eternity, and then Ronon was swinging into the doors behind him and raising his gun. Kolya didn't even have the chance to turn in their direction and the gunshot was ringing in Rodney's ears, sending a shockwave all the way down to his toes.

The bullet shot straight through one ear to the other and the sound of impact was sickening, but Rodney had spent all of this strange new life watching people die that probably didn't deserve it, and he didn't so much as twitch as Kolya went limp and hit the ground. Rodney knew that this particular death was more than the man deserved, and had it been convenient, he was sure Ronon would have made it slow.

Without someone to hold him up, John followed Kolya to the floor, leaving a streak of viscous red in a path down the wall behind him.

They all stayed frozen for a moment, watching Kolya, waiting for the world to stop turning; because this wasn't the way it worked. People didn't die without it being written on a ledger somewhere, or so Rodney had been told, and the air around him 's felt too thin to breath in without suffocating.

Then Kolya started to convulse, and Rodney darted forward, grabbing at John under his arms and pulling him away. Ronon moved to stand in front of them both, lifting his gun and resting it on his shoulder as he stared Kolya down, almost as though he were daring him to come back to life, just so he could kill him again.

Kolya arched off the ground, but he wasn't moaning, and his eyes remained closed. Rodney could hear John's harsh breathing but everything else was deadly silent until a loud inhuman cry burst up from somewhere not of this world, and a small gremlin-like creature tore a path out of Koyla's flesh, and stood poised on the corpse, watching them with familiar eyes.

"What the fuck," John said, forcing the words through his bruised throat and echoing Rodney's thoughts. He held John a little tighter, and tugged them both a little further away.

Ronon just lowered his gun again to a good aim, and fired off three more rounds. They didn't touch the creature, went right through him instead, and Rodney could swear as it darted away, climbing straight up the walls, that it was smiling.

Daniel wasn't where he left him. Jack sighed. It was hardly anything new.

Last time he'd checked Daniel had been asleep in the guest room, but the sheets had been kicked into an untidy pile at the foot of the bed and it was empty. After wandering the rooms, Jack finally found him standing on the balcony in the pouring rain, barefoot and only wearing his sweats.

Jack opened the door. "Daniel, get inside."

Daniel's eyes were far away, arms wrapped defensively around himself. He was blinking the rain out of his eyes and didn't turn at the sound of Jack's voice. "There has to be more than this," he said.

He closed his eyes. Jack stepped out beside him, letting himself get just as soaked. "Maybe there is," Jack said. "We'll all know for sure when we're ready."

"I'm way past ready," Daniel said. "I've seen everything I've ever wanted to see. I've done everything I've ever wanted to do. Learned almost all that's left to learn."

"Always something new to learn, Danny," Jack said. "Learned that from you."

Daniel laughed, but still didn't look at him. "Why are we chosen? Is it random? Or are we the ones with unfinished business?" Daniel finally turned to face him. "Maybe we are supposed to interfere. Whatever higher power is pulling the strings has to know we can't resist, can't just stand by and--"

"And what, Daniel?" Jack asked.

Daniel turned away again. "Watch everyone else get their ending."

"Come inside," Jack said again.

"I can't keep doing this, Jack," Daniel said quietly.

"I know, but come inside."

Daniel followed Jack in, but not without one backwards glance at the storm-laden sky.

Rodney doesn't know how long he stayed sitting on that concrete floor with John pressed against him and Ronon standing guard, but eventually he started moving again. Ronon helped them get home. Rodney helped John into the shower and helped him wrap a bandage around his chest and the entire time he didn't say a word and neither did John.

"Kolya's dead," John said finally, breaking their silence.

"Yeah," Rodney agreed.

"Ronon killed him," John continued. "Just...he didn't--"

"I would have done the same thing," Rodney told him.

John placed his head in his hands. "But _why_? I'm not--"

"Not worth it?" Rodney asked dangerously. "I'm getting sick of this, John. You said it, you're already dead, so your suicidal tendencies just come off as pathetic."

"That's not what this is," John protested.

"If you ever do anything like that again," Rodney started. "Well, let's just say I'm not sure I'd be able to forgive you for it. I'd still want you safe, but I don't think I even trust you as it is."

John shook his head. "The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you, Rodney. I just thought, I thought I could talk to him. Don't you get it? I've got enough blood on my hands already."

Rodney kneeled in front of him, grabbing his hands. "I've learned a lot since the day I died. I want you to listen, because this is important. Firstly, life is short. Secondly, people are just as stupid as I always suspected. Third, they can be more amazing then I ever imagined. Fourth, and most important, this isn't punishment, this isn't hell, and it isn't heaven."

"Then what is it?" John asked.

"A second chance," Rodney said, and then he leaned forward and kissed him.

John pulled Rodney up and beside him, resting his forehead against Rodney's neck before falling asleep. Rodney could never fall asleep that way, his brain was too awake the way it always was. He was always at his most brilliant after 1 A.M.

Rodney looked over at John, not sure if he'd made an impact at all, but not willing to give up yet. Rodney didn't think he was going to get another chance after this. This was it, and it was more painful and more perfect than he could have thought possible.

Rodney ran his fingers gently over the bruises around John's neck as he slept on. They were taking longer to fade than they were supposed to, and Rodney wondered if someone was trying to tell them something.


End file.
